Apples (Ledger Joker x OC)
by the-killing-j0k3
Summary: (Set one year after The Dark Knight) Twist on the doctor/patient complex. A psychiatrist at Arkham, young Juniper Stoltz has the ability to look into people's memories. When assigned to the Joker, she is determined to use her knowledge alone and set aside her powers; but is faced with a series of choices that changes her life- one being the discovery of the Joker's identity.
1. Apples- Introduction

**_Hey! Just a quick note that Ace of Spades, my unfinished Joker fic on this account, is actually finished on Wattpad, where my username is also the-killing-j0k3. I lost the documents to upload them here, so if you'd like to read it, then head on over there! It's long finished and not my best, most polished writing, but it's there if you wanna. I also tend to discuss a lot more with my readers over on my Wattpad so if you have an account, drop a message in my inbox! 3_**

 **Just some quick **very** important disclaimers on this story that I'd really appreciate if you read (NOTE: A lot of these are based on feedback I got on Ace of Spades and on Wattpad):**

• A VERY important note regarding June's character (pretty gal on the cover, model's name is Raven Lyn if you're curious):  
 _June is a biracial, black passing character_ (meaning she's half-white, half-black but appears black) and **any racist or negative comments regarding her race or gender** in this fanfiction (usually said or thought by antagonistic characters) **does** ** _NOT_** **in any way reflect my actual thoughts** , just the thoughts of the assholes that so happen to be in this fanfiction. June has been the victim of everyday discrimination like many other minorities out in The Real World™ and to pretend like it doesn't exist is a mere injustice to her character and to you, the reader (I am white and obviously I don't face the same kind of discrimination, so * _please_ * call me out- respectfully, don't throw around accusations- if anything I say here comes off as accidentally inappropriate or offensive, etc., as I've never written a character of colour before). If you don't like the fact that my protagonist isn't default-white like in every other fanfiction, get off this story and feel free to unfollow or block me, or whatever, then go and reevaluate your life. I know it's a bit odd to make an entire disclaimer simply because my character is a POC, because it shouldn't matter, but the fact that there are rarely any fanfics about POC unless the story revolves around that fact is the glaring reality and I do _not_ want to screw it up by accidentally offending anyone. Also I didn't want anyone interpreting the character as white because it's the default- that just isn't June, y'know?

• Same thing obviously goes for Joker's actions; I don't condone murdering innocent people for kicks (or any reason, actually, unless they're an orange fascist KKK supporter Nazi sympathiser with gross hair and small hands whose name is totally slipping my mind right now :/ ), and although the Joker's fashion choice is a bit out there and I personally wouldn't recommend it, if face paint and green hair's your thing, then go for it. I can condone _that_ , at least (have u _seen_ his socks?)

• ( _NOTE: this disclaimer is heavily based on comments I received on Wattpad_ ) For the weirdos (no offence) who wanna imagine that it's Jared Leto's Joker instead of Heath's, do what you want, just don't comment or tell me about it. I really put effort into analysing and making sure I get Heath's interpretation of the Joker as closely as I can, so I personally find it a little insensitive when my work is completely nullified because you wanna imagine that it's tattoos on that face instead of scars. We get it. He's hot. He has abs. Daddy or whatever. Sure. But this fanfic revolves a LOT around Ledger Joker lore and origins, so it won't fit Leto's Joker at all. Like I said, if you want it to be Jared and want to imagine that it is, cool, just please keep it to yourself. Sorry!

• _No Harley._ I don't feel that she'd fit into the Nolanverse without Joker being directly tied to her.

• Other Batman characters not established in the Nolanverse, however, do show up, but you'll know what I mean when the story gets there.

• And of course, _if anyone has any triggers regarding rape mentions, suicide mentions, obv violence etc, etc, they are VERY minor in this story_ but all the same, you might wanna be wary of that, since I don't put up chapter warnings because it spoils the story.

 _ **As usual, feel free to drop a comment and a review or whatever, my inbox is always open so message me there too if you'd like!**_

 _ **So yeah! Please enjoy. I'm so excited for this! Missed Joker so much. This is dedicated to Heath and my messy clown boy. Love you both to the moon and back.**_

 _ **Here's to another great story!**_

 _ **-tkj 3**_


	2. Chapter 1: Face Card

**_*Note*_ _:_**  
 ** _Yea I saw you skip that introduction chapter. Read it! Important disclaimers in there!_**

 ** _Enjoy!_**

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Face Card**

It took young determined Juniper Stoltz seven weeks and three days to convince Doctor Jeremiah Arkham to let her work on the Joker's case.

"Please, Dr. Arkham, I'm telling you, I can do this."

This was the last time June had been begging behind his desk, palms grasping the mahogany surface in an attempt to keep calm as her pleas fell on deaf ears. Constant rejection was beginning to make her lose hope- she'd almost lost count of the attempts by now.

"For the last time, Miss Stoltz, I will not allow patient 4479 to speak to any more psychiatrists. It's a lost cause and we've lost too many staff members along the way." Jeremiah Arkham, head of the asylum, was dead-set on getting the Joker locked up in extreme isolation, not ready to give up his pride because this lunatic kept on costing him precious time and money. "Patient 4479 is incurable. We've tried everything, from medicines to hypnotherapy to... well, everything."

 _Everything_. The truth was that they hadn't tried _everything_ \- if they'd even tried at all- but Dr. Arkham hated the Joker so much that he was trying to push him toward more electrotherapy, or better yet, the chair.

But the the thing about Dr. June Stoltz was this: like everyone else, she had a secret, and this secret was the ticket to either salvation or madness (although she hadn't known it yet). While tween girls were asking their mothers about why they were growing hair in strange places or why they suddenly began to bleed every month, little June had to ask her mother why she could see into people's heads and relive their memories as clear as the day they happened. Clairvoyance, she eventually supposed; the ability to telepathically gain knowledge about a person without even having to ask. It was like mind-reading, but she could only see things that had happened in the past, never the present or future. Of course, when June had asked her mother that, she had no tangible answer, and they'd both sworn to secrecy to never tell anybody, although it never stopped little June's curiosity from wandering. Since age thirteen she'd been so intrigued and obsessed as to why she could do such things, and how her mind differed from others, that it lead to years of reading books about Psychology which then got her a career as a psychiatrist at Arkham (including studying at University, of course). And that's why she wanted to work on the Joker's case, because with her ability she could find out what happened, to see where it all went wrong, and then, hopefully, cure him.

She pled, hopelessly frowning as Dr. Arkham shuffled through paperwork in order to try and ignore her, but couldn't seem to get her face out of his peripheral vision- _her moping expression and unkempt curls, the child_. "Dr. Arkham, please, I've been wanting to work on this case for months. You told me, when there was an open opportunity, I could have it, and now that it's available you won't let me," She said, trying not to lose her temper or raise her voice in case he mistook it for a threat. "Please. I can do this, I _know_ I can. You just gotta let me."

Dr. Arkham sighed, placing the paperwork down and began dialling the black telephone on his desk to call security again. He wasn't sure whether to feel embarrassed for her or himself as this was the third time this week she'd come here begging. "Miss Stoltz, you're young and frankly, quite inexperienced. You're, what, twenty?"

"Twenty-two."

He interrupted, "I really don't want any more of our staff members to waste their time on this... this deranged psychopath any longer. Besides, I highly doubt that a girl of your, um..." Looking her up and down, he took in her confident stance, how she dared to oppose him, and searched for the right phrase. "...a girl of...your... _background_ -" he cleared his throat, "-could handle a position as high as that."

Taken aback, she raised a brow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, Miss Stoltz," He held the phone to his ear, "That it's time you gave up. So I suggest you get out of my office before I call security to come here and-"

June's finger pressed down against the receiver, ending the phone call before it even had a chance to come through, and the only thing occupying the silence between them was the single-toned beep that lingered from the telephone, like a third presence, an entire entity all on its own. Dr. Arkham did nothing but stare at her, mouth agape in shock, as June tried her best to not break eye contact despite knowing the risk of what she'd done. But she wasn't sure if she could even care anymore. She was tired. She'd had enough. Every other doctor had gotten this job except for her and both of them knew why. Everybody knew why. A girl from her _background_ , as Dr. Arkham put it, could never be worthy of holding such a title- to even _think_ that she could try curing the Joker was laughable in his eyes.

After a deep breath, she broke the silence between them. "Dr. Arkham, I have been the psychiatrist of seven patients and four of that seven have been successful cases. Two PTSD patients, one schizophrenic and a murderer I managed to straighten out and get sent to Blackgate after proving a false insanity plea. I'm the youngest doctor in this institute, I believe, so wouldn't you call that success?" She rhetorically asked, before carrying on, "I've been in this field now for about... four years, and I've been a doctor in this asylum for two. Three if you count the internship when I was nineteen."

"Your point is?"

"I think I can cure the Joker." She repeated it in her head like a mantra- _I can, I can, I can_ \- and she stared him right in the eyes as she finally took her finger off the telephone receiver. Dr. Arkham, both intimidated and somewhat impressed by her stubbornness, slowly put the phone down and listened to her for what probably was the first time. After all, if he didn't listen now, she'd only be back tomorrow. June smiled breathlessly when she saw him put the phone down, her stomach in a whirl. This could've been it. "I'm willing to work full time on the Joker's case." She assured him, knotting her hands together in trying to look the least bit respectful.

"Let's refer to the subject as patient 4479, please."

She obediently nodded. "Y-yes, of course. I'd be more than happy to pass my other patients to different doctors and dedicate my whole time to treating the J- patient 4479. I'm sure I can find some... interesting things." And could she _indeed_.

"What makes you different from the others then, hm? Why should I let you treat it?" Squinting his eyes, he leant forward. God knows he had to retain at least a little of the authority she'd tried snatching from him. And the fact that he called the Joker an _it_...

In her head, she laughed- _don't suppose the other doctors are natural born clairvoyants_ \- but as the humour of the thought started to wear off, she redirected herself back to the main question. It wasn't why she _should_ treat him, but why she _wants_ to treat him. After all, not many people were even willing to work at Arkham, let alone happily take on the Joker's case. It was like running head-first into traffic or waltzing through a minefield. The Joker was a ticking time bomb, waiting to go off. Why on earth would she want that?

But for clever Dr. Stoltz, it was easy- she was very much a people person, with a kind of curiosity that wasn't easily sated by just straight answers. She liked to find things out for herself, rarely using her clairvoyant abilities unless absolutely necessary- that was too easy. Ever since the fateful day of the mob bank robbery a year ago, the Joker's face plastered over newspapers and magazines, she had been absolutely obsessed. Not so much with _him_ , but his psyche. Why was he like that? Why did he attack Gotham? What was his motive? How was it that one day he was invisible, completely non-existent, and then the next day, was one of the most powerful forces in the city? This was her chance to answer every question she'd ever asked.

"Well, for one, I've never really seen Psychology as my job. It's more like a hobby, y'know?" She tried explaining, "It's so cliché but... I've never been in this solely for the money. I really do want to help people. Imagine if- if I cured the Joker- imagine everyone being able to live in the city without the fear of-"

"Alright, let's not jump too far ahead of yourself, now." He snapped.

June shrank back. "Sorry."

After a long moment of thought, eyes closed, Dr. Arkham clasped his hands together and swallowed sourly, trying to humour the girl. "It won't be an easy case, you do realise that, don't you?"

"Of course, sir," June smiled. "That's why I want it."

Then, two weeks and three folders worth of paperwork later, Dr. June Stoltz was officially assigned to the Joker as his psychiatrist and was ready to work with him as soon as she signed everything. Night after night she relished in the excitement of the idea, that she, anonymous citizen of Gotham City, would soon become infamous for curing the most dangerous man any cop, doctor or vigilante had ever had the misfortune to meet. She'd spent those weeks studying his case files so religiously that she'd lose sleep most nights, lost in stacks of scribbled notes from Dr. Young and blue folders that littered the coffee table at midnight, trying to decipher the handwriting of almost every doctor she'd come to know at Arkham. And while June thought she'd find some kind of distinct pattern connecting the dots to Joker's insanity, all there was were conflicting information and scattered details that didn't add up.

To Dr. Young he was a sufferer of PTSD, to Dr. Hugo Strange he was a schizophrenic with no fears whatsoever. Dr. Whistler's notes said that he had bipolar disorder while in another psychiatrist's analysis stated he lacked any emotional response whatsoever. He had fabricated multiple stories on how he got his scars, from domestic abuse to jealous ex-partners, and in one report he even said he'd done it to himself. There was nothing to build on, nothing reliable to analyse and pull information from except for one thing: he must've been an impeccable actor, or he had the worst case of a multiple personality disorder the world had ever seen. All the doctors' files came under the same name yet each individual report felt like they were analysing different people. June knew what she was signing up for when she begged for the job, but she'd never expected it to be so... inconsistent. Unless one of his lies were actually true, there was nothing pointing towards who the Joker was before the scars and face paint. Essentially, he was nobody. Perhaps it scared her, the feeling of the unknown. She didn't like to do it, but if nothing worked... she could always just take a peak at his memories.

Eventually the day had finally come- her very first interview with patient 4479. And somehow she still managed to wake up late.

She'd spent most of the morning rushing around her cramped apartment collecting notes together and shoving them all into a handbag, swearing under her breath multiple times, cursing herself for being late. If she was late to the first damn day, there was no way in hell that Dr. Arkham would let her pursue the Joker's case.

Once she'd got in the car, she tried not to run any red lights whilst simultaneously going over standard information for the umpteenth time in an open folder left open on the passenger's seat, repeating little things in her head over and over again and referring to the planned questions written on her clipboard. She could practically recite it all from memory. _Inflicted a city-wide attack last year that resulted in the death of Harvey Dent, the disappearance of Batman, the destruction of Gotham General_... _bla bla bla_. As if she hadn't watched it all on the news when it happened.

"Dammit..." She checked the clock in her car, realising that she only had a mere five minutes to get to the asylum, head on over to the therapy room and conduct the interview, which was less than enough time. Sighing in defeat, June slowed her driving down a bit more once she reached the main roads towards the Narrows- if she was going to be late anyway, there was no point risking her life for it.

A thought sparked in her head- diary entry. June rummaged through her handbag looking for something with her free hand, and found it- a voice recorder, her own personal audio diary and keeper of her innermost thoughts. It was like a journal, only without the hassle of having to actually write it all down. She felt that it caught her in the moment, her feelings and emotions forever framed through audio. The device was a little silver rectangle the size of her palm, with a tiny screen that could let her access all of her entries and also show her how long it was recording for. A handy little thing, really.

Setting it atop the dashboard, June pressed the record button and watched as the tiny red bulb in the corner flashed, waiting for her to talk.

She started with a heavy sigh, slumping back into the driver's seat. "Monday, March... something. The first Monday of Spring," She said, steering down a curvier road, peering outside at the vast grey sky, hanging overhead like a gloomy canopy ready to rain. "It's funny. Isn't Spring supposed to signal, like... new beginnings or something? New life? It's gotta be bullshit," She laughed, "Anyway, it's... ten a.m. and I'm already late for my first patient interview with the Joker- uh, 4479. I stayed up late again last night and forgot to set an alarm, and that's definitely not the first time it's happened. Doesn't seem like it's gonna change any time soon."

Up ahead, she caught a glimpse of the top of Arkham Asylum as she crossed the bridge to the Narrows, but it was still quite a while away. She continued, "But maybe things will change. I mean, I finally got assigned to the Joker's case. I'm now officially his psychiatrist," She grinned excitedly at the thought, "Two months of pissing Jeremiah Arkham off really did pay off after all. Although I'm happy, I still feel... well, I feel nervous, that's for sure. I've never dealt with super criminals before, especially the more extreme types. Joker definitely fits into that category. I mean- patient 4479. I'm supposed to call him 4479. The doctors don't like getting attached or first-name friendly." June sheepishly reminded herself and her voice recorder. With the way her stomach was churning and her hands were shaking, she felt like it was the first day all over again. The biting fear of failing, the torturous feeling of anxiousness. Even talking about it didn't make it go away.

Seeing a road sign signalling her approach to the asylum, June pressed her foot down on the acceleration in hopes of making it quicker. _You're already late, idiot!_ It was dangerous along the windy roads but she'd driven there probably over a hundred times, and once more was never going to hurt.

"Well, I'm finally there. Still late. But better late than never. Talk to you later." And she switched the recorder off with a tiny blip, tucking it back into her bag amongst papers and a pack of gum, before driving outside the looming gates of Arkham to be granted access by security. It only took about five seconds, but in those five seconds, every day, June always found herself staring up at those black gothic steel bars and getting lost as she thought how intimidating they were. Arkham Asylum sold you on the false pitch that it was a utopian haven for your family members to seek help and medical care and the first thing they're greeted with are the grotesque gates with five foot tall spikes. It had to be said, it kinda killed the mood.

Once they opened the gate for her, the thought slipped straight into her subconscious and she parked her car somewhere in the centre- Mondays were always busy- and switched off the ignition, but not before she tilted her rearview mirror to try and assess how she looked. The short of it: like shit, athough June knew that a coffee afterwards would wake her up just fine.

After collecting her things and getting out of the car, she set off towards the front doors of the building, big and white and very... institutional. Trying to discreetly jog whilst wearing heels proved to be as difficult as it'd always been, although when she checked her wristwatch to see that she was _still_ five minutes late for the patient interview, she did try to pick up the pace.

June rushed through the lobby and waved at Jeanette, an old woman who worked at the front desk. She wasn't really that useful but Dr. Arkham felt guilty at the thought of making her leave since she'd been working in Arkham long before the majority of the staff arrived. She kept her job here out of pity, to put it simply.

June snatched the signing-in book from the side of the desk and Jeanette looked up at her sourly, steadying her glasses with ageing, shaking hands. "Why, good morning, Dr. Stoltz. It seems you're..." She took a long moment to turn her neck to look at the clock, "Seven minutes late for your patient interview this morning." Her pursed lips tutted softly and June simply sighed in response.

After scribbling down her name and ID number, she tossed down the pen on the desk and said, "If Dr. Arkham asks, I _wasn't_ late."

"But-"

Before she barely even finished her sentence June walked away with a smile, waving goodbye to her. "Thanks, Jeanette!" She could hear her flustered stutters as she hurried away, speeding up again. She passed through the corridor that housed all the doctors' offices, including her own, past the recreational room and the cafeteria until she finally reached the intensive treatment ward, pulling out her ID keycard ready.

At the two main doors leading into the ward stood Aaron Cash, head of security and he smiled at the girl, "Running late again, huh, doc?"

Dr. Stoltz forced a laugh and swiped her card along the scanner to unlock the ward to herself, "Oh, you don't even know. And today, of all days."

"What's today?" He asked.

"New patient." She excitedly replied, although avoided mentioning that it was the Joker, just to spare her the lecture. She'd heard enough from Mara.

Cash used his right hand to adjust the sleeve around his hook hand, bitten off by Killer Croc during a riot at the asylum. This had happened a good few years ago, before June had started working there, but she remembered experiencing this memory in his head and strangely, she felt it all. It was so violent, the way that his hand had been totally engulfed by a frothing wall of teeth, there one second and then gone the next. And the blood... everyone was surprised he'd remained so level-headed after such a traumatic experience.

"Best get in there quick then." And then he suddenly changed the subject, "Oh, by the way, Colter was asking where you were earlier. He swung by your office and I caught him trying to unlock the door with a... I think it was a hairpin? Guess he really needs to talk."

At the mention of the other security guard's name, June internally groaned and rolled her eyes, emotionally exhausted at even the mere _reminder_ of his existence. Colter was another security guard who worked in intensive treatment alongside Cash and a few others, and all he ever did was pester and annoy June. He was the average run-of-the-mill macho guard with a superiority complex, who thought he was as tough as nails simply because he had his own name sewn onto his shirt and owned a walkie-talkie; not to mention he was obliviously racist without realising it. Him and June had history, of sorts, the result of a date gone wrong, and some of the most insulting things she'd had said to her had been his version of a 'compliment'. Since June was biracial, he claimed he liked her because he thought that she was 'exotic' and 'skinny like a white girl but with a black girl's ass'. Of course, there was that one day when he'd found her on her lunch break, that she went through his memories and found out that he used to work as a bouncer for a club in Uptown Gotham until he broke both of a man's arms while he was drunk on the job. It was a wonder they even hired him, but Arkham was quite low on funding, what with the countless break-outs and notorious reputation for screwing up patient treatment every so often. The only reason Colter worked there at all was because they needed the muscle to keep the more unsettled patients in line. And naturally, give a guy with no brains enough power and he abuses it.

June sighed. "He _wants_ to talk, doesn't need to. Like a child, really." She turned to Cash again and awkwardly grit her teeth. "I know it's a pain but if he asks again, could you please tell him to back off a little? He creeps me out."

He chuckled and nodded, "Sure thing, doc. Anyway, it's best you get to your patient now."

She gasped at the reminder, bursting through the doors and quickly waving him goodbye, hurrying her footsteps until she was practically running, each tap of her heels clicking hard on the marble flooring of the corridor. Getting to the patient interviewing room was a breeze.

In her panicked state, she'd almost run past it, but stopped dead in her tracks as she stared at the mahogany door in front of her, fit with a little silver rectangular plate with the words 'Interviewing Room' engraved onto it.

The guard stood outside- whose name she wasn't quite sure of- was towering and muscular and stared at her as he waited for her to go in. Taking a deep breath, June exhaled shakily, not quite sure if she was ready or not. It was strange, she'd been waiting almost an entire year since the Joker had been admitted to Arkham and she'd dreamed of this day for months. All the articles, all the news reports, she could finally sit down with him and ask him why. And of course if that failed, she could look into his mind, into his head and his memories, and see what made him tick. She could have every answer by the end of the month. And yet for a minute, she hesitated. ID card clutched in her hand, she stared at the keycard swiper and wondered if this would all be worth it. Things that happen in dreams and things that happen in reality very seldom play out the same way. Maybe things in there would not be what Dr. Juniper Stoltz expected them to be.

She felt butterflies twirl in her tummy and nodded, showing the security guard that she was ready. She swiped the card across the scanner and he opened the door, holding it open so she could step inside. For some reason, she didn't expect he'd be following her in but he did, plodding over towards the chair on the other side of the table in the middle of the room as she sat down in the chair opposite. She took a moment to look around the room, not expecting anything different than usual- she'd been in here a million times. The therapy room was a whole lot nicer than all the cells, with mahogany furniture and polished flooring, vast windows to let in light but were covered with bars, that sense of freedom dulled at the reminder that everyone was a prisoner at Arkham, even the staff. It was ironic juxtaposition that she thought about almost every time she came here.

And she'd almost forgotten that _he_ was there.

June heard the tightening of restraints and she nervously sat there twiddling her thumbs as the security guard pulled the Joker, who was bound in a straightjacket, over to the chair opposite hers and sat him down with a heavy _thud_. Her heart dropped and her stomach sank. It was _really_ him.

She didn't know what to expect, as if her mind had somehow convinced her that he couldn't possibly be real, but here he was. The Joker- _the_ Joker- was sat opposite June, slouched in his chair with the fabric of his straightjacket stretching over his broad shoulders and beneath the smudged face paint he bore a lopsided frown, his tired eyes blinking a few times as he came to terms with who exactly he was looking at. On the neck and shoulders of the straightjacket were streaks of white and black and red paint, the top of the neck also bore little torn holes where he'd been biting at it. He sat in a lazy way, his figure almost slipping halfway off the chair and it was obvious that he'd woken up not too long ago, but it also signified his boredom and familiarity with this situation- he'd had doctor after doctor after doctor... and this girl was just another card in the deck of many.

Despite the initial bitterness towards her, the Joker decided anyway to take a closer look. He was certain that he'd never seen her before, and he thought he knew everyone at Arkham. Well, everyone who was worth knowing, anyway. He hadn't had a doctor like her before and he was curious to see who he'd be psychologically abusing for the next month or so before he decided to jump her and choke her to death.

But, despite the distain he felt, this was how the Joker had first ever seen Juniper Stoltz, _his_ Junie, without yet even knowing her name, but he'd always have the image of her like that burned into his mind forever- how he had actually laid eyes upon her and _seen_ her, seen _into_ her, into her big brown doe eyes and had seen every mystery she held... almost. What he couldn't get past his subconscious was the fact that he'd never had a doctor this attractive, this pretty, so plainly put-together and yet at the same time a clumsy mess, with her coffee stained lab coat and torn tights, a ladder stitching holes all the way from her knee down to the tips of her toes, inside her shoe and out of sight... and he was at a lack of words, or even thoughts. He couldn't decide if he hated her or hated the _idea_ of her being his doctor. Her skin- dark and brilliant- had this youthful undertone, a kind of ever-lasting blush that dusted her round cheeks, and her lips were a deep pink that was curved into a frightened frown, trembling ever so slightly as he continued watching her. Her wild head of black hair, long and curly. It was like nothing he'd ever seen before. And God, wasn't she a little young to be working here? She couldn't be more than twenty-five, look at her... clutching onto her clipboard, her polish-chipped nails digging into it, shoulders raised almost up to her jaw, her entire figure folding in on itself like a scared fawn trapped in the headlights of his piercing stare. He could smell her fear, practically taste it. Maybe that was what had shocked him to feel this way, her vulnerability. And she _volunteered_ to treat him.

 _Some of these doctors are crazier than the actual crazies._

"Is the, um... is the straightjacket necessary?" June hesitantly asked the guard, afraid of sounding clueless. She'd never treated a patient so unstable who had to wear a straightjacket before.

"Dr. Arkham requested he wore it for at least the first session. He can be..." The guard coughed, "Uh... aggressive to new people."

She glanced at the Joker who did nothing but stare at her, black eyes following every curve of her shoulders, arms, and back up to her freckled face, round and full of youth, this tawny coloured delight. His gaze seemed quite neutral, there was no hard edge to his stare or anything that suggested he was deliberately trying to make her uncomfortable, but it was only the fact that it felt like he was examining her, sizing her up to see how she'd react, that made her skin crawl. How it made the hairs on her skin rise. How her head spun. _What big teeth you have..._

In a way, it felt like he was trying to swallow up every detail of her, every stitch that held her clothes together, just to see what she tasted like and then he'd spit her back out without even a sour grimace or any kind of acknowledgement. He knew that look, the one on her face, her great eyes filled with this kind of emptiness, this dull naïvety that came with the partnered curiosity. It only made sense, _I mean, why else would she come here?_

"Anything else you need?" The guard asked.

Dr. Stoltz shook her head and politely smiled, "No thank you."

"I'll be outside."

"Alright." And with that he stepped  
out, the door slamming shut, leaving her alone face to face with the clown. The Joker. It was like no matter how many times she said the name to herself, she couldn't quite get her head around the fact that this was it, she was finally here. Months of begging, and here she was.

Dr. Stoltz almost flinched when he licked his lips and smiled, a smile that wasn't exactly genuine or kind. If she weren't so brave and determined she might've been scared of him, but she knew that he'd been caught red handed too many times to try and hurt her; yet, at least.

Terror had never tasted so bittersweet.

" _Well_ , my day just got a _lot_ better," He mused to himself with a grin, being the first one to speak. "And it ain't even _noon_ yet." As he spoke, she began to notice how exactly his mouth seemed to move, almost closed entirely as he mumbled with a strangely sultry tone, one that was luring and tempting, but not at all seductive. He sounded scary, like every word was a quiet threat. Every word was a different octave, sudden words that pierced and some that were slurred. He spoke like it were an art form.

But the _scars._ The protruded skin on the sides of his mouth, his scars, were mottled and messily decorated with fresh red paint, and the white paint everywhere else seemed to settle in the lines of his face, where it moved, where it had aged. Somehow, despite the obvious wrinkles and less-than-muscular physique, he looked younger than he might've actually been- about twenty five or so according to doctors' estimations, and Dr. Stoltz wasn't sure whether or not she should underestimate him and his strength, after all, an entire year in an asylum does things to people. Maybe the Joker wasn't quite on parr with how he used to be.

She cleared her throat and clasped her trembling hands together, unsure of how to actually start the interview since it wasn't being recorded. She couldn't just start with 'Dr. Stoltz interviewing patient 4479' anymore; the Joker had too many tapes and failed therapy attempts to even bother filing anymore. Half of them were just him telling terribly morbid jokes and the other half were stubborn lies: 'm _y father drank a lot, my mother was a prostitute, I was an orphan at six, I had a girlfriend who gave me these scars, there were these guys I saw at a bar.'_ June knew that they were all lies and yet she still clung onto the hope that he'd open up to her, by some unlikely miracle.

Yet she felt speechless. Like if she dared to open her mouth, no sound would come out, only the breathy remains of a silent scream. All the months of newspaper articles and all the late nights spent reading through his case files, it all mattered, of course, but it didn't help with the fear. Her nerves, they were restless, head throbbing and heart beating so fast that she was sure she'd choke on it.

Dr. Stoltz sat upright, clearing her throat and pushing forward a smile, making sure her confidence didn't falter. She had to assert her control, any sign of weakness was surely of use to him.

"Good morning, 4479. I'm Dr. Stoltz. I'll be your new psychiatrist." She introduced herself, the nervousness slowly dissolving as her words were now out there.

The Joker looked at her for a long time. He wasn't sure what to make of her. These doctors in Arkham had a tendency to be creepy; very clinical, very monotonous and emotionless, plastic puppets who stuck to the rules and were nice, straight, uniformed clones of one another. Obvious that they were a pawn of Jerry Arkham's. There was usually no sign that they were even human at all. But this one, this girl, whoever she was, had shown more emotion in five minutes than the others had shown in their entire careers, this girl was very much an open book, obvious by how her chest shook when she breathed and how she carefully shifted her eyes away from him, and he was almost certain that she simply couldn't look past the Joker persona. All the other doctors had the same excuse not to be afraid of him: _he's just a man. He's human too. Just like the rest of us_. But he could tell, could see it on her face, that she was just completely wrapped up in the face paint and the scars, the voice she'd heard on the news, the green hair paired with those red lips. And he was _not_ like everyone else.

Dr. Stoltz, upon being met with absolute silence, coughed awkwardly as his eyes bored endlessly into hers, deep black holes in the piercing whites of his eyes. How peculiar. She'd never taken the phrase 'windows to the soul' into literal consideration until now, despite it being the only entry she had into other people's memories. She was positive, so sure that if she stared for long enough she could find what was inside it, what he was, who he was.

"Um. This is where you introduce yourself." She sheepishly mumbled.

The Joker puffed out a single laugh, his chest bouncing once upwards as the buckles on his straightjacket clinked together, but showed no apparent emotion in his eyes. Not a smile. How can someone laugh like that? "Now, uh, _why_ would I do tha- _t_?" He rhetorically asked. "I _know_ you've been reading my, uh, _case_ files, doll." He mocked her, tongue roaming thoughtfully around the insides of his cheek. He then smirked slightly, leaning back in his chair. " _So_. Whadd'ya _think_?"

In the distraction of how his mouth simply moved, she'd almost forgotten his question. "About what?"

"My _case_ files," He said, a spark of delight in his voice like a jolt of electricity. "I worked _very_ hard on them. The, uh, the _sad_ stories about my _childhood_ , the far-fetched _ans_ wers to all those-uh... _ink_ blot tests. Y'know, the... uh, _father_ who beat me, the mommy who _touched_ me. I was-ah, trying not to be _too_ cliché, but I could _tell_ that Doctor Young likes a good sob story," Joker said in a matter-of-fact tone, as if the two were just gossiping over lunch. "That _one_ she wrote about? About _me_ telling her that I worked at Haly's Circus?" He giggled, _haha,_ "That one took me three whole _days_ to come up with. To think- the whole _clown_ get-up- it was _right_ under my nose the whole time! But I took my time. Gotta get _every_ detail-ah... righ- _t_."

The last letter popped off of his tongue and almost made June flinch, the sound echoing in the room long after he'd said it. It was around then she realised that everything she'd seen of him on the news wasn't an exaggeration. He really _was_ crazy. Two minutes in and she knew... this was gonna be hard work.

"Right..." Dr. Stoltz dejectedly sighed, looking down into her lap with wide, exasperated eyes. Panic. "Uh... I guess I'll just start with the basics then. How are you feeling today?"

Still, he persisted, "I _asked_ , whadd'ya think about my case files?"

June rushed out an impatient answer with another sigh. "Great. How are you feeling?"

" _An_ swer my-"

"I'm sorry, patient 4479, but I need you to cooperate with me if we're going to make any progress. I'll ask again," She said slowly, "How are you today, 4479?" Each number was said with a spiteful spit, _four-four-seven-nine_ , forcing a false smile to grace her lips. Months. She'd waited months. She was _not_ gonna be pushed around.

Joker chewed the insides of his scars, brows raised in defeat and then shrugged, his shoulders the only part of his body that moved in that restrictive straightjacket. "I'm feeling... _fine_. More than fine, but _less_ than great."

 _Good, some cooperation, at least_. "Well, why is that?" Dr. Stoltz asked, as if she were genuinely curious. Of course, she did care to some degree, but if progress was going to be as slow as it was now, she wasn't entirely looking forward to having to put up with this kind of scenario every day. She wasn't exactly a patient person.

He sighed, fists clenching beneath the fabric restraints by his sides. "Well firstly, I'm-ah, a little bit _stuck_ ," He shook his arms as much as he could in an almost violent manner, strings of chartreuse hair falling in his eyes, which caused June to recoil back slowly, "Secondly, I did _not_ sleep well last night because that, uh, Falcone down the hall kept me up with his ' _scarecrow_ ' nonsense," He mimicked him in a deep and shaken voice. "And thirdly, I'm _not_ allowed to go and do exercise because _last_ week, I, uh-"

"Broke another patient's hand because he won a running competition you challenged him to." She finished his sentence for him, knowing the story. In Arkham, things like that tended to be gossip amongst the doctors and guards , not that it was a shock to any of them.

"He cheated," Joker insisted, "I said _after_ three, like, one, two, three, _go_ , but he went _on_ three. And anyway, he only got to the finish line first by _two_ seconds." He smugly frowned. "So _I_ won. Because I went _after_ three."

"But you-"

" _However_ ," He interrupted, suddenly smiling again. "I woke _up_ to see that I have, uh, _new_ company," Joker said, licking his lips once more. "And I must say, she is _quite_ the looker."

At his somehow straightforward yet cryptic compliment, he watched as the doctor's face heated up in embarrassment, but didn't dare react in a way that'd make it obvious that his comment got to her. Oh, she was too _easy_. And obviously doesn't get enough compliments. He wasn't blind, he knew that she was... pretty, but nothing memorable. She had that mundane, every-day kind of beauty, like somebody'd slip her their number if she was a waitress or something, but nothing to fawn over. What was also odd was that she had this... air to her, a kind of sadness behind this confident front of hers, that something was just a little bit wrong with Miss-Doctor-whatever-her-name. _Just out of a relationship, I'll bet._

"You're... forward, I'll give you that," June said awkwardly, his smile suddenly dropping into a face of irritation. _Where's the shy smile? The deep breaths? Tugging of the skirt?_ "But I'd like to keep this professional. So while I do appreciate a nice compliment, I'd rather not hear it from you. Is that okay?" She feigned a smile, reaching for his files and her clipboard to talk to him about his medication.

Joker clicked his tongue and chuckled spitefully, " _Damn_. Quite the, uh, _mouth_ you've got there, doll. _That_ kinda talk gets your _tongue_ pulled out where I'm from. D'ya treat _all_ the freaks around here like that? Or am I just _that_ special?"

June found the page that had records of his past medication and the medication he was on now, and kept her eyes on the paper as she answered him. "Oh, you're special alright. That's not the reason, though."

"What _is_ the reason then, sweet cheeks?"

She looked up at him. "The fact that I feel like you're trying to challenge my authority." And again, the doctor beamed, the playful gleam in his eye diminishing almost instantly. While he stayed quiet, June glided a deft finger along the page, passing the names of every prescribed drug he'd been taking for the past year.

With Dr. Hugo Strange, who labelled him as a schizophrenic, he took antipsychotics such as Clozapine and Chlorpromazine, while with Dr. Young, his last doctor, he'd been prescribed drugs that increased his serotonin levels, thinking that he had a form of PTSD. "So Dr. Young's prescribed you... Mirtazapine and... Phenelzine, right?" _Anti-depressants? No, that can't be right..._

Joker shrugged cluelessly. "How should _I_ know? They just give me a bottle and I _swallow_ whatever's in it."

Dr. Stoltz rephrased, "How about... Prozac?"

"Ah," He nodded, " _There's_ a name I know. One that don't sound like _gibberish_ , at least."

"And how have they been working for you?" She asked, crossing one leg over the other, "Did you notice any changes? Felt any happier?"

Chewing his bottom lip, he looked to the floor in thought with his brows furrowed deeply, before raising his head again and smirking. It was like he'd just thought of a joke. "I, uh, I don't _know_ if you've noticed, but there's a _reason_ I'm called the Joker, sweets," He flashed her a sideways grin, teeth on display behind his red stained lips, yet his eyes still drooped with a kind of exhaustion that didn't seem to go away. "And that's because I'm _always_ happy."

Reading his notes, she replied, "Well, according to Dr. Young you're a sufferer of PTSD after the 'violent and traumatic childhood he experienced after his father attempted to murder him and watched as his mother died before him'." She read aloud from his last doctor's notes, as he exaggeratedly nodded as if he were interested and paying attention. "So? Any elaboration on that?" June tucked an unruly lock of hair behind her ear as she got my clipboard and pen ready.

Joker noticed this, as he watched the doctor's hands closely with a suspicious eye, almost as if he was daring her to make a move. He looked up and she was looking at him.

He tossed his head to the side in trying to remove the hair from his eyes and finally spoke in a scratchy voice. "What do _you_ think, doc?" He asked, almost interrogating her, testing her. "Hm? Ignore the _reports_ , the, uh, the diagnosed _illnesses_ and the old _session_ tapes. I wanna know what _you_ think." He said, leaning forward so that he was leant over the table, his painted face shadowed ominously below the glare of the harsh white bulbs that buzzed perpetually in the background. "Who _am_ I? _Or_ \- or rather, _what_ am I?"

Pursing her lips and looping her fingers around the blue biro in her hands, June tried to detach herself from all the assumptions that his files and the news had given her. Surprisingly, it was a rather tricky question. There were the facts: he _was_ a killer, he _was_ a criminal, he _was_ a psychopath with a lust for chaos; and then there were the theories: he was abused, he was maimed, he was once a man, a mystery. To sum the Joker up in a single word was nigh impossible.

"You're a murderer." She stated.

He shook his head in protest and tutted, "No, no, no, I didn't _ask_ that. I asked what _you_ think I am." His tone was almost insisting in a threatening way, like he wanted her to say whatever came to mind.

After a moment of thought she honestly replied, "Well... I think you're a liar."

It was silent and then the right corner of his mouth raised into a smile, brows raising. " _Do_ you now?" Brave girl. The kind of brave that gets girls like her in trouble.

She nodded. "Yes. I mean, it's obvious. None of your stories correlate with each other, there's the constant switching between what mental illness you're being diagnosed with-"

"Are you claiming I'm _faking_ insanity?"

June swallowed. To put it into words was hard. She didn't buy the fact that he apparently had schizophrenia, the symptoms of delusions and hallucinations just wasn't there. He wasn't paranoid, anyone could tell straight away. What the Joker was, was an intelligent person, the attack he wrought on Gotham last year was too perfectly constructed to just be a random assault, and clever Dr. Stoltz could see that he was a somewhat logical thinker and liked to read people- a little like her really, which was rather scary now she thought about it.

"Perhaps not insanity, but you're definitely faking whatever mental illnesses you claim to have." She concluded.

"Now tha- _t_ ," He began with a harsh smack of his lips, "Is a _very_ bold statement to make, don'tcha think? _Especially_ during our first session. Dr., uh, _Stoltz_." He smiled and shook his head, tongue darting out against his top lip as the name spilled out of his mouth in amusement. "You at all _scared_ of me, doll?"

"Not one bit."

"Then you're _curious_."

"Not... exactly."

"Your _pre_ sence here would suggest _otherwise_."

"What do you mean?"

His arms shuffled uncomfortably in his straightjacket, adjusting his position in the metal chair and he looked off to the side as if in thought. "Well, until _last_ week I spent a good, uh, _month_ or two downstairs. In the _basement_. Extreme isolation, y'know, where the _real_ crazies hang out," He explained and June continued listening. "That _was_ , until one of those-ah, _monkeys_ come down and take me back _up_ here, telling me that I've got a new _doctor_ , which was weird, 'cause Jerry Arkham had told me that I wasn't getting any more _treatment_. Said I was incurable, y'know, _preaching_ to me n' whatnot with that 'you're trapped forever' schtick." With another smack of his lips he groaned and sank into his chair, head lolling to the side. "But _now_ , I'm sat here in the, uh, _comfy_ enclosure of this wonderfully _familiar_ interviewing room and I've got a pretty _girl_ sat in front of me too, a _doctor_. Dr... J? Dr. J Stoltz," He read aloud from the name tag on the doctor's labcoat, eyes squinted so hard that the black of his eyes melted into the black of his paint. "And Jeremiah said- he said so _surely_ that he, uh, his eyes were all _wide_ and he was yelling and he told me- no, no more _doctors_ , no more therapy. And yet _here_ I am. And I _know_ that Jerry's not the kinda guy to, uh, up and change his _mind_ so fast. So that can only mean _one_ thing."

"Which is?"

He smiled distantly, a ghost of laughter. "You came here _willingly_."

Defensively, June searched for an explanation, "We thought you deserved a chance."

" _No_ , no, no, no. _You_ , not 'we'. _You_ did this all by yourself. Nobody _asked_ you to do this, now did they? And yet _you_ climbed into the lion's den. Tell me, doc, why'd you _come_ here, huh?" He tilted his head, "What kinda, uh... _masochist_ are you to wanna _actually_ spend your time trying to talk some sense into me, hm? Got a _crush_ on me or something?" He giggled, to which June swallowed hard.

"I... I wanted to prove a point." She quietly said.

"And what point is _that_ , sweet cheeks?"

"That you can be cured," She said it with such confidence that it almost seemed like she'd done it already. "And that I can do it."

At her words, he spluttered up a laugh and doubled over, giggling with glee. Suddenly he threw his head back, reeling from laughter with a weak smile and all June could do was watch with apprehension, wide eyed with both wonder and fear. Nails gripping her knees.

"Your _momma_ ever taught you not to play with _fire_ , sweetheart?" He mocked, every sound that left his mouth was sharp and without sympathy or feeling, just laughter and resentment. He was toying with her. Trying to place her in a way, trying to figure the girl out so that he could see what kind of character he could play himself as this time. Sympathetic? Scary? Tempting...?

 _Momma_. Mama. Her Mama had taught June many things, and yet she always ended up in situations like these. June simply bit down on her lip in a desperate attempt to not retaliate, bending her head downwards, eyes glued to the empty page on her clipboard that was void of any notes. This really wasn't easy. Not at all. But then again, she never expected easy, not from somebody as complicated as the Joker.

June gripped the pen in her hand. So tensely it could've snapped. No, she _was_ going to cure him. She was so sure of it. She didn't spend seven weeks hanging around Jeremiah Arkham's office just to sit in a chair and sulk. _He's just a man. Just a man._

As if on cue, a heavy knock came at the door and frightened June jumped in shock, snapping her head towards it. The security guard's deep voice was muffled on the other side, but he clearly said, "The hour's up, doc." Surely enough, when she checked her watch, it was already 11 a.m. The Joker groaned loudly and sighed, almost in disappointment. _And we were having so much fun._

"Just when things started to get-ah, _interesting_." He said, his eyes once more roaming the doctor's slight figure as she stood up to grab her things. She was so small, a little shrinking violet. Maybe she'd disappear into her labcoat and blouse. "I sup _pose_ there's always _next_ time, hm?"

June grabbed her bag and smoothed down her skirt. "Yes, and _I'll_ be asking the questions next time. It's only the first session and we've already got off track."

He raised his brows. " _Really_? I think we made _great_ progress. It was very, uh..." He searched for the words to say and puckered his lips in thought, tapping his foot. " _Insightful_."

Ignoring his comment, June sighed heavily and with her clipboard and pen in hand, headed towards the door. Despite being slightly irritated, she was ready to walk out with her head held high, knowing that she was finally on the path to curing the Joker, or at least, figuring him out. He was certainly difficult, sure, but that made it so much better. She could somewhat figure him out- the lies and the made up stories, the uncertain mental stability and the constant dodging of questions- Jeremiah Arkham was wrong; he wasn't a lost cause, but a blank canvas! She'd paint her theories and findings on him however she liked, all of her ideas would finally be recognised and her curiosity would thrive from every conversation. Maybe there'd be some progress made after all.

As the door opened and she was ready to leave, June was interrupted by an abrupt shuffling of metal buckles and shoe scrapes, along with the Joker interjecting, "Oh, _one_ more thing."

She stopped and turned her head, a strand of hair falling into her wondrous eyes and she brushed it away swiftly, sending him a curious glance. "What is it?"

Joker nodded his head towards the girl and asked, "That, uh, that _J_ on your name tag- _whatsit_ \- what's it _stand_ for?"

After pondering for a few seconds whether or not it really mattered if she told him, she blinked and gazed at him, wondering why he'd even bother to ask. One card in the deck of many... yet Juniper Stoltz wasn't even a face card. Why would he care?

Still, she answered him with a soft calmness, as if she were telling him a secret.

"June." The girl said, and the expression of the clown's face totally shifted into one that seemed to be of interest, almost as if the single syllable of her name had changed everything, from what he saw in her to what he saw _of_ her; what a plain name for such a plain girl. "It stands for June." And with a sudden conscious shake of her head she turned and carried on walking out of the door, waiting for the guard to lock it shut.

As she walked down the hall, further away from the interviewing room, she hugged the blank clipboard to her chest and headed towards her office, thinking about the different ways that she could bend and open the mysteries hidden within the mind of patient 4479.

* * *

 ** _Daaaaaaamn let's get this show on the roooooooad! Admittedly, I'm not as happy with this chapter as I'd like to be, but I sorta had to cram in exposition and introduction to save later confusion- so I'm sorry if this doesn't work as well. I am, however, having tons of fun writing as the Joker rn. I hope you liked the first glimpse of this fanfic!_**

 ** _Also, yeah, I do know that June's very young. But hey, age gap. Plus, she's a smart cookie. I think. Also, her clairvoyance is explained better over on my Wattpad but here's the general gist: she can look into people's memories. Info about it unravels in the story, and it plays quite an important part in revealing the Joker's character._**

 ** _Love you all, here's to another fanfic!_**

 ** _-tkj_**


	3. Chapter 2: The Dark

_**This chapter is again just to set things off and build up character arcs, but don't worry, major plot elements are coming very soon!**_

 _ **Enjoy, don't forget to comment/vote/share!**_

* * *

 **Chapter 2: The Dark**

Tired, sleepless Juniper Stoltz spent the first hour of her morning in the front desk's office drinking coffee with Mara. She was trying to calm her nerves before another patient interview with Joker, but it proved to be excruciatingly hard, with thoughts of the first session repeating in her mind over and over again. Caffeine, a useless substitute for sleep had been keeping June awake that morning; since, again, she'd been up all night just thinking about him and trying to put the pieces together, all to no avail. She tried to keep her hopes up, after all, they'd only had one interview so far, but she couldn't help but think of how difficult he was, how cryptic and yet at the same time blatant and straightforward. June was just itching at the thought of not knowing which part was the real truth- the secrets he kept bottled up or the jokes he let sit right in front of her nose. It made her wonder if Dr. Arkham was right, if he really was incurable.

 _Incurable, not unbreakable,_ June reminded herself _. There's still memories up for grabs to look into._

And that was the worst part, resisting the temptation of cracking his head open like an egg and looking at the gooey goodies inside. His memories- just there, waiting to be looked at. It was so easy. All she had to do was look into his eyes for a good minute and his life story would roll out like a red carpet for her to walk all over, and she could do with the information whatever she wanted. However, the rational part of her cried out to good morality, _stay true and do it right, do it fair_. After all, June was a doctor, not a fortune teller.

Mara's voice brought her back to reality and all the muffled noises became clear again. She was back in the front office, staring behind the pale girl opposite her at a clipping of an old news article reading ' _Masked Vigilante Brings Justice to Gotham: Clown-Faced Criminal Brought to Arkham_ '. June silently chuckled. She had the very same snippet of that article pinned to to the fridge back home.

"It's delusional. How come he's even allowed the makeup?" Mara, June's best (because she was honestly her only) friend asked, sneering to show how annoyed by it all she was. She sipped her coffee with stressed brows, tilted downwards in confusion.

Mara was a peculiar companion. She worked at Arkham too, but as an assistant to Jeanette, the secretary in charge of the office. Mara practically did all the work there since Jeanette was just too old to actually function, which basically made Mara the head of the main office, with Jeanette acting as a figurehead.

Despite not getting enough credit, Mara had quite a lot going for her- young (only four years older than June, which made her twenty-six), bright-eyed and pretty, with short brown chin-length hair that framed her face in a nice, feathery way. She had eyes as cold as ice, grey and eerily transparent, yet they never failed to start flaring hotly whenever she got angry about something, which was usually quite a lot. She also wasn't experienced in any field of medical education besides the basics of first-aid and the use of EpiPens for Jeanette's allergies, so her blatant disregard for most of the patients was quite evident in the way she threw around the occasional slang terms of 'freaks' and 'crazies'. It was rather disappointing for June to see such intelligence be wasted on not wanting to understand people in need, simply because of fear and misconception.

June blinked dazedly, snapping out of her trance and smiled. "What was that? Sorry, I... haven't had much sleep lately."

Mara sighed heavily and drank more of her coffee, pulling her left hand back to admire her neatly filed nails. "I'm just confused. How come the Joker gets special treatment? You ask me, he should be put down."

Wide eyed, June hissed in an attempt to hush Mara and she placed a finger to her lips. "Shh! You can't say things like that in here!"

"Oh, c'mon, it's not like I'm in his cell or anything, he can't hear me," Mara rolled her eyes. "What I mean is, there are killers just like him on death row that are on the waiting list to get the chair, yet he's still here being fed meals and, like, getting to wear that creepy makeup. What makes him so different?"

"He's insane, that's what makes him different. Murderers on death row don't go around in costumes shooting people for kicks. There's usually reason behind their motives," June said, voice suddenly lowering. "The Joker- um, patient 4479, he's sick. Not in the insulting way, I mean, ill, _actually_ sick. And I wanna cure him."

Mara snorted in false laughter, sitting back in her chair with a shake of her head. "Sick is right."

"Mara, c'mon. I could at least use a little bit of encouragement here," June's hands tightened around the coffee cup. "I did _not_ stand around Jeremiah's office and pester him for two months to just give up. I'm gonna at least try."

Mara stood up and placed her empty coffee mug atop a nearby filing cabinet. "Oh, goody for you," She sarcastically clapped, "I suppose you'll be looking for a medal when he strangles you to death."

"He was in a straightjacket yesterday. He could barely even breathe, let alone attack me," June said. _Poor thing_ , she would've said, were she not conscious of the idea that he was a raging maniac.

"Colter said he saw him in his cell this morning without. Oh, and he's on guard duty today too."

June's eyes sunk back into her skull and she internally groaned,"Oh. Great."

Mara laughed again as she sorted through a stack of papers in a drawer, leaning back on the right heel of her black stilettos, "June, I honestly don't get why you hate the guy so much. Have you seen his muscles? They're to die for," She swooned, clueless of his true nature since she'd actually never spoken to him, just admired him from afar. "Just go on a date with him. Just one date. It's the least you owe him."

"I don't owe him _anything_. I mean, he grabs my ass in line for the vending machine because he takes my refusal as an invitation. It's gross."

"It's romantic! Hell, I'd give my left arm to be in your shoes." She bit her pink lips, suddenly struck by lust. This kind of talk reminded June of the kind she used to have at sleepovers when she was fifteen- and that wasn't to say she was enjoying it.

"Be my guest. I don't want the attention anyway." Eyes drifting to the clock on the wall, June felt relief to realise it was time for that dreaded session- yet it relaxed her to know that she could finally escape the conversation. Picking up her handbag from the floor, she slung it over her arm, holding the coffee cup tightly. "Gotta go, patient interview."

Mara barely even bothered to look at her as she left, still 'busy' with paperwork. "Huh. Good luck curing the crazy, June." June didn't answer her as she took the doorway out of the office. As she left, she sighed to herself- Mara had to be nice deep down, nobody was that needlessly cruel- and it was thoughts like this that kept her out of people's heads. Optimism.

As usual, June went through the brief tedium of scanning her ID keycard at every door, smiling at Aaron Cash, holding her head up and trying to make the most of each moment before she had to deal with Colter outside the therapy room. As if she wasn't having a lousy morning already.

He must've seen her before she saw him, as halfway around the corner June heard a wolf-whistle accompanied by a thick Bronx accent. _And cue the corniest pickup line in human history_... "Heh, nurse, ya better check on me 'cos I think I got a fever."

Colter, the prick who put the 'ass' in 'asylum' (if it had another S, of course, but he'd be none the wiser unless he had to check the logo on his shirt first just to see how it was actually spelt). She resisted the urge to roll her eyes whilst nearing the 6-foot-something lump of a brute, craning her neck upwards just so she could look past all the muscle to try and spot his godawful face. Surely enough, there it was: the literal square jaw and the fake tanned skin, the thin lips and second day stubble. Classic Colter. "You're late. What's been keepin' ya, June?"

She reduced her most hateful thoughts into a short and disappointed sigh, trying not to just scream at him right then and there. "C'mon, Colter, I've got a patient interview. Just let me in," She said, reaching for her card for the scanner, only for him to step in front of it and block it. June sighed heavily and her grip around the coffee cup tightened. "Colter. Move."

"I like it when you're feisty, June, y'know that?" His laughter rattled around his lungs like stones and was painful for her to even listen to, almost worse than the sound of him saying her name. "Darlin, c'mon. Lemme take you out ta' dinner Saturday night. I'll make ya feel real good, promise."

"I've told you a thousand times, I'm not interested. Now move and let me do my job."

"Why not, sweetheart? Why don'tcha wanna spend the night, huh?"

The doctor grimaced, "Because I'm not interested- and not to brag, way out of your league- now move or I'm calling security." Her face scrunched up in anger and despite her bravery to go so far as to threaten him, her knees were quaking with fear of not knowing what he could do next. Those muscles weren't just for show, and she'd seen in his memories before that he had a girlfriend once. Emphasis on _had_. And she also had a functional left eye. Emphasis on _had_.

"Baby, you forget, I _am_ security." He bent his neck down to June's level and she stepped back the instant she smelled the scotch on his breath and the sour stench of cheap cologne.

"Sure, talk big now but once I call Cash over you'll be walking away with your tail between your legs. Remember what happened last time?" She raised a brow quizzically, reminding him of how Cash had left him with a black eye a few months ago- the result of him literally trying to kiss her going into a patient's cell.

Offended, he spluttered in protest and feeble self defence, "That- I- it didn't even hurt that much and besides, you-"

By that time, he'd finally moved and June scanned the card, unlocking the door, "Thanks, Colter," and stepped inside without a moment's hesitation. She heavily sighed in what felt to be relief and almost laughed, realising that she actually felt safer and less vulnerable in a room with a madman than around Colter. Now _that_ was crazy.

As she shut the door, Joker's excited giggle immediately caught the doctor's attention. "Well, _look_ who came to see me," He teased, looking the small girl up and down. Those unforgettable curls, long and shiny. "And five minutes _early_ , too. Eager to, uh, _see_ me, doc?"

June took her seat without hesitation and set her things down, coffee cup still in hand.

"Well, actually, I was just-" Her words were cut off by her own train of thought as she took in his appearance. No straightjacket today, just like Mara said. And for some reason, the sight was so surprising to her that it had completely stolen the words from her mouth, any idea of where her sentence was going just spiralling endlessly into the back of her subconsciousness. Replacing the yellowed straightjacket was a bright orange t-shirt with matching trousers, both with the numbers 4479 sewn onto them in bold black stitching, and although the size was perhaps just a little too big for his lean, athletic physique, he somehow suited the ugly colour in all its luminescence, bringing out the black of his irises and making the green in his hair look fresher and touched-up.

Then came the slow and impending realisation that without a straightjacket nor handcuffs, he was free to move, jump, dance, sing, whatever he wanted, and June had nothing to defend herself with but a mug of coffee and a pen. She exercised slow and deep breaths, trying to stay relaxed as she told herself that he wouldn't do anything so long as she was sat there. In fact, he looked tired and bored out of his mind (as usual). This was just a regular Tuesday morning for him.

Her voice was caught in her own mouth as she felt the way he looked at her, his black eyes trailing up and down as he settled his hands on the table in front of him, as calm and as relaxed as a predator before going in for the kill. She couldn't deny it- it kinda scared her. It excited him.

"I, um... I wanted to try talking today. I mean, now that we've, uh..." She paused as he raised his brows for her to continue. "...introduced ourselves... I thought we could actually try and make some progress today."

He pulled his sleeves up and ran his fingers through green knotted hair. " _Progress_? I thought we were doing _fine_."

"Well, you were down in maximum security-"

"Extreme _isolation_ , doc. Much more _severe_ than just, uh... _security_ measure _s_." He hissed out the last letter, stretching out for longer than she'd like to hear it. Snake like and... venomous.

She stared at him blank-faced. "Right... so you were down _there_ for a few months, yet your health is remarkable and your mental stability is on par. I mean, considering." June awkwardly noted, clasping her small and dainty hands around her coffee cup as Joker sat upright, sprawling his legs as he bit his right thumb, nibbling to calm his energy.

"Consider _ing_...?"

"Considering you've murdered more people than anyone can bear to count and the fact that you've been diagnosed with countless mental illnesses, only for us to realise that you're jumping from one to the other like a game of leap-frog. H-hah." She laughed worriedly and tapped her fingertips nervously against her clipboard.

He smirked slightly at how she was presenting herself. _Not very professionally_. "You're _funny_. In a, uh, self- _dep_ recating, _nervous_ , I'm-too-smart-for-my- _job_ kinda way. _Hah_." He sarcastically imitated her laugh and cracked his knuckles, making her flinch. She wasn't sure whether he was just teasing her or threatening her, but either way, the gesture didn't do much to make her feel comfortable.

"What I mean is, you're not volatile," She said. "And again, considering you've got this new-found freedom after months of being in a padded cell, it's rather impressive to see you so calm." She almost praised him, as if to say, _well done on not killing anyone yet, here's to another year of therapy_. It was almost sad, yet it wasn't sympathy that made her feel so. It was the thought that maybe she wouldn't be successful in curing him after all.

Joker shuffled in his seat and stared at her again, giving her _that_ look, the one where it was like he was watching her every move. " _Naïve_ , aren't you?"

"What?"

"There's _more_ to extreme isolation than just the, uh, padded _cells_ and _straight_ jackets. D'you _know_ what goes on down there?"

Almost too afraid to ask, she curiously narrowed her eyes at him, trying to read him. _What goes on?_ She asked herself. He was asking her the question as if suggesting there was something... dangerous happening. But Arkham never did that- never went further than lobotomies and even then they needed permission from higher-ups to carry out such acts. She'd heard rumours about extreme isolation, but that was exactly what they were, just rumours. Nothing more than silly ghost stories about electroshock therapy and medieval methods of curing patients. And as if she'd hear the truth from the _Joker_ of all people. If only she had the guts to look into his memories...

"Anyway, I wanted to try talking today." June avoided the question, looking down at her drink, tiny bubbles circling around the edges of her coffee.

"Well, we're doing _plenty_ 'a _that_ already." He joked.

She sighed, "C'mon, seriously." Straightening out the papers on her clipboard, she took a sip of her coffee. "I've been reading through your files last night and... I wanted to try talking about your childhood."

Loudly, he groaned and rolled his eyes, fidgeting like a toddler having a tantrum in his chair. "Ugh, _God_ , I've lost _count_ of how many times I've heard _that_ phrase." He then sighed, slapping his hands on the table with a _thud._ "So, what'll it be _this_ time, doc? Childhood _trau_ ma? _Strange_ dreams? Or, uh, you gonna pull out the old _ink_ blot tests for me to _gawk_ at?" The disinterest for this dull routine was evident as he played sarcastically, "That one's the dead _cat_ we buried when I was seven, that one's an _apple_ and that one's... _whoops_. That one's _naughty_." A giggle was caught in his throat as he dipped his head to look for her reaction, and all he saw was her big, round eyes filled with innocuous fascination.

His smile stretched in an almost creepy way and she couldn't help but cross her arms uncomfortably, adjusting her clothes self consciously (it was a nervous reflex to toy with her clothes). She felt ridiculous, letting him poke and prod at her with his words to see what made her squirm; it almost undid all of her studies and three years of experience at Arkham and threw it all down the drain. Think about it: c _onfident and capable Dr. Stoltz, made a complete fool by the Joker_. She hated even thinking about it.

"Okay," Dr. Stoltz exhaled softly, patiently, and placed her pen and clipboard aside on the table, then smoothed down her skirt as she tried to muster up the words and the courage to speak them. "I haven't really gone off-script like this before," June first admitted, pursing her lips. "Um. Have you ever heard of a psychologist named Watson? John Watson?"

Joker was confused at the sudden change of subject, but didn't dare to say anything, only played along. This was new, or at least irregular, how she was suddenly breaking tradition by trying to make conversation, which also struck him as strange. He was thinking about strangling her to death and at that same exact moment, his doctor was trying to casually _chat_ with him. _Odd girl. Odd, odd girl_.

"No," He finally said, "I _haven't_." His tongue darted out the corner of his mouth in interest.

At least June had something to say now. "Well, he and his wife, Rosalind Rayner, conducted an experiment on a baby they'd named Little Albert. Sound familiar at all?" She asked, head tilted (and then her lips circled to one side in order to blow a curled strand from her eyes, almost subconsciously).

He shook his head but was intrigued, "What _kinda_ experiment? Did they, uh, did they cut off its _legs_ and made it crawl? _Please_ tell me they did."

She grimaced, "Um, no. No, they didn't. It was a psychological experiment."

"Oh." _Shame_.

"But it was actually kinda cruel," She explained, subconsciously gesturing with her hands, "See, much like Pavlov and the dog- um, do you know about that experiment?"

"Uh, yeah, they conditioned the _dog_ to drool every time he heard a _bell_ or something." Joker remembered Hugo Strange mention how he could do the same to him.

"Well, Watson wanted to see if he could condition a baby to fear."

Joker's tongue lapped at his lips and he leant forward. "Right..."

"The basic gist of it was that first, they gave the baby a rat to play with. The baby liked it and was neutral. However, the next time he was given the rat, Watson used a hammer to-"

" _Kill_ the rat. Oh- uh, kill the _baby_?"

"-hit a steel pipe-"

"Oh."

"-and it made the baby scream and cry. They repeated the procedure of playing with the rat, once with the noise, then without the noise," June explained, almost eager to share with him her interest in her particular studies. "After a while, they gave him the rat without the sound and the baby started screaming and crying in protest. In fear. Then, the baby started fearing similar things like rabbits, dogs, even fur coats and human hair. All that through scaring him through _sounds_." She couldn't help but smile, seeing the look of sudden curiosity flash over his face. "They taught a baby to fear something it never did. It wasn't instinct. He was _taught_ to be scared. Isn't that amazing?"

Joker took a moment to lean back in his seat and he chuckled. " _Huh_. That's, uh, that's pretty... that's pretty _cruel_." Child's play compared to his handiwork, of course, but it was still trauma.

"The worst part is, they planned to decondition the baby so he wasn't afraid anymore. But the experiment was cut off when the two psychologists were kicked out of the university they worked at."

"Why?"

"They were having an affair while Watson was still married."

Joker's brows shot up and he laughed. "So they never _de_ conditioned the baby?"

"No."

He giggled uncontrollably and held his stomach. "So the kid grew up to be _scared_ of- of like, _bunnies_ and fur _coats_? For _ever_?"

"Without extensive therapy, I dunno..." June shrugged. "Probably."

At that, Joker almost lost it, laughing so hard that he doubled over and was gripping his knees, while all June could do was watch on in absolute awe and fascination. There was no consistent rhythm or pattern to his laughter, only the instinctual reverberation of giggles and heaving breaths. She wasn't sure why he found it so funny, but the thing that scared her was that the corners of her mouth ached dully in wanting to smile. His laughter... it was contagious.

She bit the insides of her cheeks and asked him, "What's so funny?"

Still laughing, he sat upright and tried to calm down, eyes welled up with tears of elation. " _Oh_... oh, _nothing_. Nothing at _all_."

June played with her hair nervously and felt her smile slowly dissolve. "Then why are you laughing?"

"Why _not_?" A gruesome smile, discoloured teeth grinning.

June could've lost herself, simply staring, but shook her head and got back on track. "Anyway, I was telling you that story because I wanted to ask..." She bit her lip and he waited before she shyly suggested, "What are you afraid of, Joker?"

The laughing stopped immediately and she nearly froze at the sight of him frowning, going from a toothy smile straight to a glare. It was eerie, as if he were animated, a clockwork machine. Changing at the flick of a switch. The scars and the paint did nothing to help her, of course, the forced scarred smile pulling up on his heavy frown. And again, almost within seconds he snapped out of it and was moving again, eyes shifting to the name tag on the doctor's lab coat.

Head tilted, he mused, " _So_. Dr. _J_ Stoltz. Uh, _June_. Junie. Ooh, _Junie_." He grinned. "I _like_ how that sounds."

It was an indescribable feeling, her name in a killer's mouth. It made her stomach twirl. And _Junie_... nobody had called her that name for years.

She stammered in protest, "Please don't call me-"

"So, _Junie_ ," He emphasised with a narrow of his eyes, as she sank back into her seat, wishing she were as tiny and as inconspicuous as a thumbtack. "What's the exc _use_ for-ah, turning up _early_ , hm? Missed me already? I'm _touched_."

His now named Junie avoided his gaze and swallowed harshly. "Actually, if you must know, I wanted to make sure that security isn't mistreating you."

He falsely gushed in flattery and cooed, "Aww, didn't pin you as the _protective_ type, _Junie_ -"

"Dr. Stoltz. And I just wanted to check because those bruises-" She motioned to the purple marks on his temples, barely visible under the faded greasepaint, "-came from somewhere. And I happen to know a particular guard who likes to boast that he abuses certain patients." Colter _._

Not even acknowledging what she had said, he moved the conversation back to his earlier topic, finishing his interrupted sentence. "-actually, I thought you'd be a lot more delica- _te_ and _dainty_ ," and then he pointed towards her with paint-smeared fingers. "But _no_. No, I _like_ you. Not like the other Mary Sues that've, uh, come and _gone_. You've got a little _fight_ in ya. Something you've had to train _up_ past the years, I can tell." Joker licked the insides of his scars and by her disheartened expression, he knew he'd hit a nerve. "I ain't _blind_ , Junie. Neither are _you_. You _know_ why you had to fight so hard to get this position, to sit where you _are_ right now. And we both-ah, _know_ it ain't _just_ 'cos you're a woman." He raised his brows as June looked down at her hands. "Am I _right_ in, uh, saying tha- _t_?" Again, the letter popped off his tongue like a cork out of a bottle.

"What's your point?" She sighed, pretending not to know what he was getting at.

"Happened to _Cash_ , too." He said, pointing vaguely to his left (as though Cash were somehow there). "I was hearing the _in_ mates down the block talking about how _long_ it took Cash to become head of security. _Years_ , they said, while it only took the guy before a few _months_. And there was one _obvious-_ ah, _diff_ erence." With an exaggerated whisper, he cupped his hand next to his mouth and leant forward. "I'll give ya a hint. It's about _appearance_ , toots."

Wide eyed, June blinked. He was aware. He was insane but he was aware.

"I stood up for myself in a world that told me I didn't matter. That I was always destined to sit on the sidelines while everyone else got to succeed, no matter how hard I tried. So what're you saying- that the reason I'm so stubborn is that I'm 'damaged'? That I'm hurt?" June could barely stop to take a breath. "I don't _want_ sympathy. I don't- I don't want special treatment. I want to help people, okay? I want to make a difference, even if that difference is just a signed document that proves another person's sanity. I wanna help you." Her words were so definite that they felt like facts, like she were already there.

"Junie-"

"Dr. Stoltz." She irritably said, jaw clenched. There was a long silence, much too long to ever be comfortable.

Joker chuckled to himself, entertained by her little outburst and leant forward, elbows on the table and his chin in his hands. "Oh, I _definitely_ like _you_. There's a _fire_ up there in that little _head_ of yours, ain't there?" Upon saying this he clicked his tongue, a spontaneous tock that echoed in the room. "Oh, how it _rages._ You're _angry_ , Junie, aren't you?"

Huffing sarcastically, she went to reach for her bag and clipboard. "This session is over-"

"Sit. _Down_." Joker's voice was low and booming, making her jump in shock and immediately, she sat back down. She had every right to leave but at the same time, she knew that this conversation was getting somewhere.

Colter knocked at the door and June almost tensed. "June. Everything a'right in there?"

Turning to look at the door, she called back, "Everything's fine!" and then she looked at Joker, whose eyes were momentarily looking up and down her legs. "Don't shout at me like that, please."

" _I_ wasn't shouting," He sulked, a frown on his face. " _You_ weren't listening to me. It's your-ah, _job_ , after all."

"And I conduct how these sessions go. You can't just up and stop me like that," She told him, shaking her head. "If you keep doing things like that then we're gonna have to restrain you again. And as nice as the safety would feel, I'm not comfortable around the thought of my patient being all strapped up like some... animal," She said, thinking of how uncomfortable he looked in a straightjacket the day before. Part of her felt sympathetic, yet another part reminded herself that no, he was a criminal, he was insane, he was here for a reason. But he was also a human.

"Maybe I _like_ it," Joker hummed lowly, fingers tapping on the table. "Being all _tied_ up and... _helpless_ -ah." He popped his tongue and again, Junie winced.

"Well..." She cleared her throat dryly. "Well, either way, I'm gonna need you to cooperate. Help me help you."

He grinned widely as if he couldn't help it and raised his brows. "In what _ways_ , sweetheart?"

June sighed distraughtly and looked away, "This is ridiculous-"

"The _dark_." He abruptly said, his scars crinkling as his smile dropped into a look of seriousness.

At the sudden statement, June turned.

"Earli _er_ , you, uh, asked me what I'm _scared_ of. The _dark_." He told her, to which she scrambled for her clipboard and pen. He repressed the urge to wickedly laugh at her- _gullible little girl._

June stopped herself from giggling like an idiot as her toes scrunched in excitement. "Yes, go on."

Joker played with his hands as he spoke, dark eyes darting around the room. "I mean, _most_ childhood fears are, uh, _irrational_. Don't make sense. Like the, uh, the _boogeyman_ or the monster in the closet, that's silly. The _dark_ , though? I'd say that's a _perfectly_ rational think to be afraid of."

"Why?"

"It's im _bed_ ded in human instinc- _t_ ," He said, licking his bottom lip pensively. "We fear, uh, _danger_ because we wanna sur _vive_. Think about it- back in the _day_ of throwing spears and sleeping on rocks- nobody just ran into a sabre-tooth's _den_ for the shits and giggles, now did they, huh?" He chuckled, and she shook her head with a pursed smile. "And the _dark_. Nobody _knows_ what's in the dark. Anything could be, ah... _lurking_ in there." His voice suddenly went quiet and June almost felt a need to keep hers that way too.

She scribbled down quickly, scrawled handwriting unintelligible to his prying eyes. She twiddled her pen and asked him, "So do you think this fear's... stayed with you somehow?"

Joker shook his head confidently and his eyes connected with hers for a moment. "Some fears you grow _out_ of. I'd say it's, uh, _worr_ ying to grow out of a fear like the dark. That means you're _denying_ your human instinct."

"So, you're saying now you're in... danger, potentially?"

"Who, _me_?" Joker laughed, "No, no, _no_ , Junie. _I'm_ not the one in danger. Even the _dark_ don't scare me, and neither can whatever's _in_ it."

"Why not?"

He grinned, "Because _I'm_ the one with the _knife_."

Utter and total spellbound silence, Juniper Stoltz dared to say nothing. A blatantly innocent threat... yet empty, completely void.

"So... you're saying that-"

"What're _you_ afraid of, Junie?" Joker interrupted, the simple question rolling off his tongue with ease. Her discomfort was satisfying to him as he watched how every single muscle of hers shook when she moved.

After a pause, June timidly mumbled, "I don't think that's a suitable question to-"

"That's rather un _fair_ , now, isn't it?" He rhetorically asked. "I, uh, _lay_ all my cards out on the table and get _nothing_ back. At least _humour_ me, doc. Throw me a _bone_."

"It's personal information."

"Too _scared_ to face your fears? Oughta talk to Jonny Crane about _that_." He mockingly pouted. He was trying to get a rise out of her.

"Sharing personal information would be unprofessional. I'm your doctor, not a cellmate."

Joker sat back and huffed, looking to the side. "Now _that's_ an interesting statement. I'd say we're _all_ cellmates here."

"What do you mean?" In frustration, the pen fell from her fingers. He spoke in vague statements, rhetorical questions, twisted riddles. What did it mean? What did any of it mean?

" _Think_ about it," He told her, fingers outstretched as he gestured. "One way or another, we _all_ ended up in the same place. Isn't it _fun_ ny how, uh, both the sanest _and_ the maddest people end up here at the _same time_?Y'know, you doctors are considered to be the _pin_ nacle of intelligence and _san_ ity while the rest of us _crazies_ are considered... broken. _Freaks_. A small _mis_ hap. You're here to _cure_ us, right? Yet by saying that we're, uh, that we're _sick_ in the first place, that's discouragement from the start. _Odd_ , isn't it? _I_ think it's a rather ar- _tis_ -tic standpoint to have, don't you?"

"So... you're a freak and the doctors and I are not. Is that it?"

Joker chortled, insistently shaking his head. "Now, I never said _that_ , dear. No, what I'm saying _is_ , uh, _every_ freak ends up in Arkham one way or another. Even the ones with, uh, _medical_ degrees," He said, his prophecy somewhat still standing true. "Madness. Attr _acts_. Madnes _s_. We all _saw_ what happened to Johnny Crane. Hugo Strange." He pursed his lips and dropped his hands into his lap, like lead weights. " _Gran_ ted, I-ah, _did_ push his _buttons_ a little, but uh..." He stared through Junie for a moment before blinking. "He's there to prove a _point_. When pushed to the brink of in _sanity_ , people become _fra_ gile. They... _snap_." At his last word, he clicked his fingers and June swore she was hypnotised, because she felt herself jolt and her head felt heavy.

Still, she somehow understood what he was saying and nodded. "Everybody has a limit."

" _Nobody's_ sane in the madhouse. Not even the hired _help_."

Swallowing dryly, Juniper knew he was right. Every patient here was mad or hurting in one way or another, and the doctors were just as bad, not to mention the security guards. Cash had lost an entire hand and was now obsessed with a mutant crocodile man; Boles was once a sleeper agent; the founder of Arkham himself was once mad; Quincy Sharp was corrupt and disgustingly power hungry. Colter used more brute strength than brains and was the epitome of human harassment. Jeremiah Arkham was a sick and greedy borderline- con-man; Jonathan Crane had fallen from grace long, long ago. So what about June? Her powers? Why, she was the hiccup in a perfect system. A freak occurrence, a naturally unnatural anomaly, something she knew couldn't be cured nor explained. And June didn't want to admit it- nobody did- but the murderer sat in front of her had a point, and boy, did he have a thing or two to say about what was wrong with the system. It was remarkable, how someone as blunt as to not feel remorse for killing could simultaneously spot and point out every tiny detail that made the world tick. Every lose screw that created an unjust society. He saw how the paint began to peel before anyone thought to lather on another coat; so why was he so mad? If he was so attentive and observant, why was he so crazy?

"I... well..." Joker smirked at Junie's loss of words as she began to pack up her clipboard, coffee and pen, slowly standing. "Think it's safe to say we've made some progress here." She told him with a smile, picking up her handbag and looping it around her shoulder.

Joker placed a hand around the back of his neck and stretched, standing up. June almost stumbled back in shock when she realised just how tall he was- a looming figure over six foot, she was sure. Even in heels she felt tiny in comparison. She tried her best to keep some distance as she walked towards the door.

"It's Wednesday tomorrow," June said. "Our session's at one instead of ten."

"I've got lunch at one." He told her with furrowed brows.

"I know. I'm supposed to accompany you."

Joker cooed and smiled. "Ooh, a _date_ , huh? You sure know how to make a guy _blush_ , Junie." He teased, leaning against the edge of the table. "So _forward_."

June rolled her eyes and resisted giving him even a pity laugh as she explained, "They want me to monitor you, see if a change of environment has any effect on your cooperation."

"You gonna dress _up_ all nice and _pretty_ for me? Because, uh, I hate to _break_ it to ya, doll, but I forgot to rent a _suit_." Joker's eyes fakely shifted around awkwardly as if to apologise and he bit his lip. It had to be said, he had a rather good sense of humour. Classic and clean. She could see why some people thought he was charismatic.

"Goodbye, patient 4479." June emphasised, pointing out the fact that he was just stalling to waste her time.

Joker chuckled and waved sarcastically, his fingers wiggling as he bade her goodbye. "Good _bye_ , Dr. Junie Stolt _z_." He mocked and she finally left, closing the door on that day's session. And did Juniper have a lot to think about that night.


	4. Chapter 3: Mutilation, Slaughter and--

_**Disclaimer**_ _ **: Uncensored mention of the word 'f*ggot' early on in this chapter- I don't condone the use of that word and again, it is said by an antagonistic character. Also I don't censor curse words because I feel it breaks the authenticity and flow of the writing; it's almost like fourth-wall breaking and personally, I feel like it breaks the immersion. Sorry if anyone's offended by this word and thanks for reading!**_

* * *

 **Chapter 3: Mutilation, Slaughter and...**

She ate a chocolate bar before lunch to calm her nerves but ended up feeling sick; poor regrettable Juniper Stoltz. By the time it'd hit 12:55 p.m. she'd completely forgotten about her lunchtime session with the Joker, then spent the next four minutes in panic once she remembered, in which she _then_ ate the chocolate bar. Walking from her office to the Joker's cell- where she'd then have to escort him to the cafeteria with a guard present- she told herself that _hey, maybe this just isn't my day. Wednesdays_ are _in the middle of the week, so maybe my head's just in a scramble_. Looking too forward to the weekend, she suspected.

Walking through the intensive treatment ward, June looked again at the number scrawled on the back of her hand. 425. The Joker's cell. Getting there was simple enough, just a quick detour past the cafeteria and down the corridor, but once she heard the echoing laughter of Colter around the corner, she knew she was in for the longest two minutes of her life. Surely enough, there he was, stood outside cell 425 talking to another identically broad-shouldered brute, evidently talking about the new patient that had arrived the night before. June had only just managed to catch a glimpse of it on that morning's news broadcast, but word was that the GCPD had found Poison Ivy and recaptured her after her last escape attempt. There was something about vicious plant life spontaneously growing on the shores of Downtown Gotham near the slums which must've given her away, but June had yet to see Ivy being escorted to her cell- that was, if she hadn't been transferred already. In which case, _congratulations Arkham, this is the fastest work you've done in your life._

Colter guffawed obnoxiously as his hands drew the outline of a bodacious feminine figure to the other guard and stupidly nodded. "Yeah, man, she's got, like, these hips and legs for days. And I mean _days_."

The other guard raised a brow and crossed his arms, "Don't she got, like, green skin or something? Is that actually true? 'Cause Benny in extreme isolation said-"

"Yeah, well fuck what Benny says. Benny's one'a them, uh... faggots, whatever you call 'em."

June's brows raised as she heard the slur leave his disgusting mouth and she found yet again another reason to despise Colter more than she already did. Misogynistic, ignorantly racist _and_ homophobic. _Put that on your Tinder profile._

"But Ivy, like..." Colter took a moment to snicker, licking his thin lips, "She's got like..." In a vulgar attempt to describe her he brought his hands out to his chest and mocked squeezing, "...y'know, man... jugs... like _huge_ ones, know what I'm sayin'?"

Enlightened, the other guard's eyes lit up and he nodded, "Ah, yeah, I get ya, I get ya."

Just as June approached the cell, the conversation took an abrupt stop when Colter spotted her over the other guard's shoulder, and his expression remained the same- idiotically lustful. As she clenched her clipboard Colter made a show out of moving the guard out of the way and approaching her, waving a gargantuan hand her way. "Hey, baby. How come you're here during lunch hours, huh? Missed me?"

"I've got a patient interview." She stated with a dry and dismal voice, waiting by idly as the nameless guard unlocked the cell door by keycard- something all guards had and doctors did not, for some reason- and Dr. Arkham wondered why there were so many cases of guards abusing their power. June tried avoiding Colter's gaze as he leant on the wall next to the cell door, peering inside quickly with a disgusted scoff.

"How crazy do you gotta be to assign a girl to treat that freak?" He asked rhetorically, taking a moment to look her up and down, eyes flickering every so often to her chest.

Without looking at him, only ahead at the cell door, June took a peak at patient 4479, still in full straightjacket, and answered him, "I volunteered."

Colter spluttered in laughter and stood up from the wall, invading June's line of sight. "You? _You_ volunteered? You mean, you _asked_?"

This time she looked straight at him, giving the impression that she was entirely fearless despite it being the opposite. His chest still reverberated with laughter as he crossed his beefy arms one over the other, looming over her like the great dread she felt when she tilted her head to look up at him.

"Yes. I asked."

"But you're-" He wheezed in laughter, "You're as delicate as a pansy, Junie!" She hadn't bothered listening to him until she heard that nickname, that whiny two-syllable hiccup of mockery that she despised, and her mouth straightened into a frustrated line. "What- are you- you suicidal now?"

"What did you just call me?"

Colter was still reeling from laughter when he answered, "What? Oh, Junie?"

"Don't call me that." She snapped defensively, shaking her head, "Nobody calls me that."

Smirking slowly, he shrugged and raised his brows, lowering his voice to a whisper. He moved his squared face closer and June recoiled back uneasily, curling her fingers tighter around the clipboard. His voice was gargled and not at all pleasant, almost distorted when it reached her ears, and it rattled in her head like stones, "Ain't what I heard," He said, before motioning back to the cell behind him with his fat thumb, "'Cause it sounded like you and your _friend_ there got along real swell during that session yesterday, _Junie_."

Feeling vaguely threatened, she eventually broke eye contact with Colter and lowered her head, fearful of how much closer he could get to her. It was times like these where she was certain that the phrase 'to get under her skin' could be taken literally, with the way that each step she took back, he'd make up for with two. She was scared that one day, he wouldn't stop coming towards her, no matter how many people were there to see.

June stammered, "I-I told him not to."

"Barely sounded like you tried."

"You try talking sense to someone with serious mental illnesses and a pathological superiority complex," She said, feeling herself grow smaller as he stood over her. _Superiority complex. Funny_. It seemed to fit Colter better than it did the Joker. "It's- it's not as easy as it- um..."

The grouchy voice of the other guard broke the stuttering lilt in June's voice as he pulled the Joker out of his cell, keeping him grounded with handcuffs binding his hands together behind his back. "Colter, leave the kid alone, you're scarin' her." The guard said, and Colter took one last look at June before backing away, raising his hands in false surrender. Although she wasn't necessarily pleased to be called a kid by the guard, she was somewhat relieved that he had stepped in, as June wasn't sure how much further Colter would've gone in terms of intimidating her; he didn't exactly have much sense of self-restraint, even if there were people around to witness it. Unpredictable, with the mind of a rapist.

This statement was ironic to her as she turned her head to look at the Joker, whose hands were forcibly held behind his back, arms uncomfortably twisted behind the bright orange shirt. He eyed Junie with the same pensiveness of two days ago, that fateful first therapy session that had been amusing to think about ever since. He simply couldn't... decide on her. It wasn't that he felt he had no control over her- he'd bend and twist her until she'd break- but he just couldn't seem to _place_ her, categorise her. Pin her as a certain type, to say. There was something _off_ about her, past all the witty comebacks and occasional nervous stammer, there was something else there that he couldn't quite see. And to see that fear in her eyes when that brute guard stood over her was something so deliciously invigorating to see that it almost excited him. As if he couldn't wait for his turn.

June caught his eyes for a second and she saw it: that manic hunger, like a ravenous animal who had been starved for weeks. Behind her was Colter, breathing heavily down her neck. And there she was, in the middle of it all, a piece of meat waiting to be ravaged.

The anonymous guard's voice saved her once again. "Ready to go, ma'am?"

June's eyes were stuck watching the Joker's, mouth slightly parted in both apprehension and curiosity. She had never seen anything so dark in her life, those two black irises that flitted back and forth from watching Colter and back to her, absolutely endless pits of tar. They mesmerised her in the same way that they almost scared her, as his eyes were the blackest, most infinite things she was sure she'd ever seen. She never quite understood how people could sense immediate evil in others until now, as those eyes held... nothing. Empty and yet so full of bad; infinite and finite all at once. The two greatest ends that met in the middle, met her.

The guard spoke again. "Uh, ma'am?"

Colter's mouth pressed by her ear. " _Junie_."

Suppressing a yelp, she leapt away from him and swatted at her ear as if he'd bitten it, all the while she watched him with complete caution as if expecting him to pounce at her. Joker held back a laugh as she straightened herself back out, smiling at the guard who had initially called her. "Yes, I'm ready."

The guard nodded and forcefully turned Joker around as they walked down the corridor, but as June turned with them, Colter sent a quick hand flying towards her backside and slapped her, eliciting a scared and pained whimper from her mouth. He laughed as he walked down the other end of the corridor but she couldn't bring herself to look at him, the humiliation was too much at times. He whistled an old tune to himself as he left, and June's mind was struggling to make sense of the situation. This wasn't the first. And it would never be the last.

When Colter was gone, she realised the Joker had began whistling and picked the tune back up from where Colter had left off, pausing to hum and even throw in a word or two, which earned him a warning look from the guard who still had a death grip on his handcuffs.

Joker turned his head to look at the guard, still whistling and hummed again, " _Cut loose... footloose_... _kick off your Sunday sh_... no?" He arched a questioning brow to the guard.

"What the hell're you singing?" He grunted.

" _Footloose_. From the _movie_ Footloose. _Y'know_. Kenny Loggins?" He said, only to get a silent response and then he gasped. "Ya don't _know_ Footloose?" He asked in astonishment, as the guard scoffed and shook his head, looking away dismissively. Joker turned his head around to look at June and he tutted, shaking his head as if to make fun of the guard. "He don't know _Footloose_ , Junie."

"Dr. Stoltz." She coughed awkwardly, afraid of what the guard might think. He didn't seem to take any notice.

Joker carried on, " _C'mon!_ Footloose! _You_ know that song, right, Junie?" He pressed her and unsure of how to react, she quickly nodded. He smiled and looked back to the guard, "See? _She_ knows Footloose."

"Can we please stop talking about Foot- Footl- whatever it's called." The guard huffed, face as dead and dull as a brick wall.

"It's a good _song_ ," Joker nodded and whistled it momentarily before interrupting himself again, earning a groan from the guard, "Gotta _say_ , uh- what's that _oth_ er guy's name? _Carl_?"

"Colter." Piped June, knowing she shouldn't have.

" _Colter_ , right. Hit me with a, uh, a _belt_ before." His voice suddenly grew airy as he recalled the memory, then shook his head and got back on track. "Well. If you ask _me_ , he's a _nasty_ piece'a work and sigh _t_ for sore _eyes_ , but at _least_ he knows Footloose..." He paused as he craned his head to look at the guard's name tag. "... _Ken_ neth."

"Just Kenny." Said Kenneth.

" _Just_ Kenny?" Joker's upper lip curled, "What kinda name is _that_? What kinda _sadist_ calls their kid 'Just Kenny'?"

"Shut up, clown."

"Just Kenny. _Huh_. Sounds like a _girl's_ name."

Just Kenny's hand tightened once more around the handcuffs just as the three approached the cafeteria. "If you don't shut up-"

"Is it short for _Justin_?"

June cut in before the situation could escalate any further and clearing her throat, she nervously laughed, "Well, um, thank you, Kenny-"

"It's _Just_ Kenny, Junie."

"-for escorting the patient. I'll bring him to his seat."

Just Kenny sighed and took the handcuffs off the Joker, watching him warily as the clown rubbed his wrists in mock pain, June standing by the side to wait for further instructions as if Just Kenny would give her _super_ helpful tips on how to help them find a table or something. But instead, he just left, mumbling about how _pissed_ he was that he now had that _stupid fucking foot song_ stuck in his head.

Already ahead of June, Joker had bravely entered the crowded cafeteria as though entering his own kingdom, the doctor quickly following behind with her high heels clicking against the floor.

The cafeteria was about the same as any, with large windows and grey walls, dozens upon dozens of tables all laid out in rows throughout the hall. The only difference was the people sat down; every seat held a criminal or a 'crazy', as Mara liked to say (June liked this saying as it slipped off the tongue easily, despite its negative connotations). Everyone was talking and luckily, no-one was screaming, so this put June at ease as she followed her patient towards a table in the back that was full, despite Joker's confidence. With only one seat on that table spare, he sat in it, and before June could object so that he could find somewhere else where she could talk to him, all eleven patients who were sat down had scrambled up and left, gone so fast that if she had blinked, she might've missed it. She watched in awe as they scuttled away frantically, not once daring to look back at the murderer who was now sat down contently, brushing a stray crumb off of the table before wiping his hands in his shirt. With June still stood, he motioned to the seat opposite him, and without a word, she sat down.

"They seemed to be in a hurry." She hummed.

"Mm, they're _scared_ of me, doll _face_ ," He almost bragged, running his fingers messily through his freshly dyed and cleaned green locks. Once a month they let him touch up his hair; despite the staff not necessarily agreeing with it, it did keep him under control when he got what he wanted. That was it, the deal they'd made- let him keep the persona and he'd behave. "Whadd'ya think it _is_ that _scares_ them, huh? The _scars_? My _rep_? The fact that, unlike the _other_ average _loony_ -toons, _I_ manage to pull off orange so _well_?" He laughed while smoothing down his shirt. June had to say, although it didn't necessarily suit him, the colour made an interesting combination with the green hair.

June placed her clipboard and pen on the table in a way that was as far from him as possible, watching his hands cautiously as he put them in front of him on the table. He clenched his fists, one in the other, palms taking their turn to stroke his knuckles and wrists, still bearing red lines from the handcuffs. Bruised and calloused, he had the distinct hands of a killer's, yet the paint that'd been left over from applying it said otherwise, that the art of painting his own face was something meticulous and methodical, streaks of white and black and red left under his nails and in the webs of his fingers. The joints clicked when he cracked his knuckles. June blinked.

When he noticed her presence had returned, he resisted a smirk as he asked, "So, uh, _why_ is it that you're accompanying me to _lunch_ again, Junie?"

"Dr. St-" She paused with a sigh, knowing that no matter how many times she'd say it, he'd never stick to the formal title. She answered him, fixing a stray curl in her hair, "Dr. Arkham thinks that an occasional change of environment is a good way to test therapy effectiveness to see if background and atmosphere has any impact on your behaviour."

"In _English_ , please?"

"He thinks it's a good idea to see how you react to therapy in a different room. Environmental changes and all that."

He hummed with a smile and clapped his hands once, the sound bringing a sudden jump out of her. " _That's_ better, see? Quit it with all that-ah, _fancy_ terminology n' all. Makes you seem so _uptight_ , Junie."

"Excuse me?"

Her objection fell on deaf ears as one of the kitchen workers approached the table with a grey plastic tray and slapped it down on the table without any cutlery to eat it with. June took a shot in the dark and guessed that the unidentifiable mush parted into two separate unidentifiable mush-piles was mashed potatoes with mashed peas and then a pink blob that she'd come to the conclusion was mashed jello, almost flattened back to its liquid form. Not even a glass of water to wash it down with. The only vaguely appetising thing on the tray was an apple, red and ripe and all of a sudden wonderful when compared to the piles of abused, alien mush. It was times like these where she suddenly forgot how awful this place was until faced with the ugly truth.

Joker looked up at the kitchen worker and smacked his red lips together expectantly, "No _napkin_? No 'bon-appeti _-t_ '? _No_ , uh, 'dinner is _served_ , sir'?"

The kitchen worker just groaned and walked away, muttering under their breath about hating their job. Joker simply tutted, pointing back to the worker with his thumb, "Pfft. _Waiters_. Think they're _so_ important."

Astounded, June watched as he examined the food on his tray, prodding it with his finger and licking it each time, an inquisitive look on his face as it slowly stiffened into an unimpressed and disgusted grimace when he swallowed the first mouthful. She couldn't help but think about the way he'd treated the kitchen worker like it was a game of make-believe, how he somehow managed to draw the attention back to himself in every little situation, how during each boring moment he still managed to crack a joke or annoy somebody else- just for the sake of it.

Joker scooped up a lump of mashed potatoes and ate it all clean off his fingers, cringing once more at the taste, then motioned to the empty space in front of June. "Where's-ah, _your_ lunch?"

"Oh, I just had a quick snack before coming here." She casually said, although under the table she twiddled her thumbs at the sudden sickness she felt in her stomach. _It's just the nerves. Just the nerves._

"What did'ya _eat_?" He asked like he cared.

"Chocolate."

" _Ah_."

There lingered an uncomfortable silence after that, filled by the chattering around them that seemed to dissolve into nothingness as the two stared emptily at each other. Through each other. There was that feeling again, that curiosity that sat in the both of them. June watching him as if he were under a microscope. Joker watching her as if she were his food. _Probably tastes better than whatever's on the tray_ , he'd funnily thought to himself.

Seeing that Junie wasn't much up to talking, the Joker eyed the apple on his tray and then at the empty space before her. He picked up the fruit, rolling it in his palms as he admired it, blood red and delicious. Blood red. Blood. _God_ , it'd been a while since he'd seen some blood. The beatings didn't count- that was _his_ blood, not theirs. It wasn't as satisfying when it was his. Just a mess, really.

He then wished he had a fork, where the fantasy of stabbing out Junie's eyes and pretending to wear them as his own suddenly played on his mind, something that kept him occupied as he looked at her innocuous freckled face. He imagined what her blood would look like. Dark red- dark, _dark_ red, he was sure. And her insides... they'd look quite pretty, although much like clothes, they'd look prettier on the floor. Her guts would be neat, uniform and packed together tightly so that they could all fit at once into her tiny body, shrink so small that once he cut her open they'd spill out into his hands and he could mould them together like clay... _oh_ , he was losing himself again...

Looking at the apple, he tossed it in the air once and caught it, before looking at Junie and letting it roll onto the table towards her. Her eyes followed the fruit and she caught it as it landed just in front of her clipboard, holding it with two hands as she examined it herself. Bright, piercing red, and so shiny.

Looking up at the Joker, she sheepishly laughed, "Why'd you do that for?"

He balanced some jello onto his fingers before licking it off, and then raised his brows as if to offer the apple to her again. "Why don'tcha _eat_ it?"

June shook her head and rolled the fruit back to him. "I-I can't do that. It's your lunch."

Joker chortled and pointed to his tray. "Sorry, does this _look_ like lunch to you?"

June was really scraping at the bottom of the barrel to try and justify the inedible mess on his dinner tray and she croaked, "Well, it's, um... it's... healthy. Lots of..." He began to pick up the potatoes as it slopped back down onto the tray. He raised an expression at June as if to ask her to try and explain it. "...proteins?"

" _Heal_ thy or n _o_ t, Junie, that is _not_ going in my body." He pushed the tray to one side and ate the remaining jello on his thumb, instead picking up the apple. He tried offering it to her again, wordlessly holding it towards her but she was stubborn, shaking her head so vigorously that her unruly hair followed her movements, bouncing from one cheek to the other, and although he did laugh, she hadn't noticed it.

Joker shrugged at her refusal, his eyes strangely locking with hers as he then took a bite, his teeth sharply sinking deep into the fruit, spraying just the tiniest amount of juice. The crunching noise was so vivid that she felt it in the very pit of her stomach. He stayed there, staring at her, mouth biting, crunching, _devouring_. He tore it away from his mouth and chewed relentlessly, not once breaking eye contact with her rounded, curious gaze, both frightened and intrigued at his behaviour. His hand was clenched around the bitten apple, firm and strong. The veins in his wrists protruded in a branching pattern, like twigs of a tree. Aggression seemed to spill from every pore, and June wondered if he even knew it.

After he swallowed, he shook his head and threw the apple back down on the tray. June looked at it and saw that the inside was brown and rotten, not edible in the slightest. The outside of the apple was enough to fool anyone, and here he was grimacing. " _Nuh_ \- uh. That's a _bad_ apple."

As Joker stretched his arms, June sighed disappointedly and picked up her pen, ready to start the session that she hadn't exactly planned. "That actually kinda leads on to what I was about to ask you." She said, looking up at him expectantly.

He settled back in his seat and raised his brows, resting his arms on the table. "Oh?" He blew a green strand out of his eyes, "And what's _that_ , sweetheart? What _interest_ did that, uh, _apple_ pique, huh?"

"Nothing exciting. Just wanted to ask how you're handling things in here. Y'know," She waved her hand as she listed, "The cells, your free time, the conditions..." Her eyes drifted back to the rotten apple. "The, um... food."

"How I'm _handling_ them?"

"Mhm." She nodded, then formally corrected herself, "I mean, yes."

He chuckled inwardly, realising how quickly she was starting to loosen up. Her words were slipping. Her posture slackened. Went from as standing as stiff as a board to sitting with her elbows on the table- and it'd only been three days. _Don't hang up on me now, Junie, we haven't even gotten to the fun part yet._

Joker scratched his chin in thought and hummed, seeing how June was preparing her pen. He pointed at it and asked, " _Why_ 're you writing this _down_?"

"Well, if you're uncomfortable with certain things, I could try and ask Dr. Arkham about it to see if he'd make some arrangements." _Not that he ever listens to me._

He laughed, rubbing his hands together excitedly, "Well, in _that_ case, I'd like extra _pill_ ows, a vibrating _toothbrush_ , a TV set- make it black and white, those flashy colours drive me _nuts_ \- a _coffee_ machine, one'a those little _bells_ that rich people have to call on their _butlers_ like- like- _ting-a-ling-a-ling_ \- that'd be _cool_. Just like out of that _one_ movie with the guy-"

June, despite her annoyance, found herself letting out a laugh. "I'm serious."

He paused for a minute to take in the sound of her laughter. Shrill and innocent, the snarky snicker that scratched its way up her little throat was nothing less than music to his ears, the renowned signal of her oblivious and ignorant joy. He could see it in the way that she didn't cover her mouth to hide her giggles this time- she'd almost forgotten entirely where she was, who she was. Professionalism? She payed it no mind.

"So am _I._ " He smirked, before tilting his head. " _Most_ times." And then he laughed again, as June shook her head and stared down at the blank page, trying to straighten out the situation before it got out of hand again. At least he wasn't interrogating her this time.

She tried again, eagerly leaning forward, "But in all seriousness, 4479, how are the conditions for you?"

He suddenly snapped- _4479, 4479, 4479_ \- eyes narrowed as he waved his hand, " _No_ , no, no, _no_. A'right, _first_ off, cut _that_ shit."

Taken aback by his attitude, June lifted her elbows off the table as if he'd jump over and strangle her. Her face hopelessly altered into one of immediate wariness, her brown eyes widened for a moment. "What?"

"You _know_ what shit. That _4479_ shit. I ain't some _robot_ , Junie, so cut _that_ crap." Joker pointed threateningly at her, causing her brows to furrow downwards. There it was- it flashed in her eyes- that fire! Like magic.

She scolded, "Could you please not swear during these sessions? It's not very professional."

Aw, she was _worried_. He leant over the table and smiled. " _Fuck_."

"Joker!"

" _Fuck_ fuck fuck fuck fuck."

"Stop it!"

"Fucking _fuck_ , Junie, fuck, fuck, _fuck_."

By now, some of the other patients had started to look at them and June panicked, unsure of what to do. It wasn't like she could just get up and slap a hand over his mouth or anything, so she desperately shushed him, tapping her nails on the table repeatedly. "Joker, cut it out!" She hissed, as he kept on going.

He toned it down with a long and breathless laugh, resting his cheek in his hand, "Oooh, _boy_ , do I _love_ that word, Junie. It's my _favourite_ word. Uh, second to 'muti _lation_ ', of course," He chuckled, then paused, "Wait, no, fuck's actually my _third_ favourite. My _second_ favourite is 'slaughter'," He nodded, somewhat proud of the useless decision he'd come to, "'Cause that's got _laughter_ in it too. Much like _me_ , hee _hee_."

June stared at him, baffled- he was acting as if the situation had never happened. "What is wrong with you?"

He smiled innocently, "I thought _you_ were the doctor. _You_ tell _me_."

June sat there for a good minute with her head in her hands, sighing deeply to herself. Only the third session and she was already starting to get frustrated. She saw now why every doctor had resigned before the Joker had the chance to kill them himself. Just plain frustration. But she wouldn't do that. She couldn't do that to herself, she couldn't let him get to her. She had to prove Dr. Arkham wrong. She had to know what there was to the Joker.

Taking a deep breath in, she sat back upright, Joker eyeing her form unfolding upwards, like a flower in bloom. An oblivious, totally naïve, easily irritable, wild-haired flower. He was having the time of his life. Not as fun as that hypnotherapy session with Hugo Strange, but it came close. Junie was a fun little toy. Shiny and new. He'd get his fun out of her before she eventually broke.

She quietly asked through barely grit teeth, "I just want to know how you're coping with the conditions around here," She slowly said, brown eyes flaring. _There it is, there it is!_ That _fire_ he loved so much! "I know some things."

"Do you?" He sarcastically asked, licking the insides of his scars.

"I'm not blind. I see how the guards treat the patients here. You're no exception."

Joker was silent, let her continue as he dragged his tongue across his bottom lip, the paint cold and tasteless.

June continued, "Colter is especially... violent. He's-"

"Yeah," Joker nodded, wagging a finger at her. " _That's_ what I meant to ask. What's going on _there_ , huh?"

She eyed him suspiciously, fiddling with the pen in her hands, "What do you mean?"

He tutted, leaning forward against the table again. "You _know_ what I mean, Junie. You and Col _-terrr_."

She suddenly stopped talking, and although Joker would've been thankful, she was holding precious information from him. She looked down to the silver pen in her clammy hands and traced her red nails along the tip of it, feeling his eyes following her movements as she went. He'd noticed now how delicate her hands were. Smooth and tawny coloured, knuckles rosy just like her cheeks. Three freckles began at the top of her wrist and disappeared into her sleeve, the white labcoat that still had that coffee stain on the collar, faded from rigorous washing at the laundromat. Junie moved slowly as though she were made of air, floating, twiddling her pen as though her fingers could make it fly.

She clicked the pen once and Joker let go of a breath he'd greedily inhaled, causing her to look back up at him only to find that his black eyes hadn't left her.

"You and _Colter_ ," was all he said. He was waiting for an answer.

"That's private information." She mumbled, barely looking at him.

The thought of that guard's brute hands around her throat was both amusing and oddly uncomfortable to him, thinking how Colter would only have to apply the tiniest amount of pressure to squeeze her windpipe shut, surely. She seemed to hate Colter's presence, like his voice slithered down the back of her neck each time he spoke, and while Joker did absolutely _relish_ in watching her squirm, he preferred the intimidation of a knife, not a rapist. And Colter was a very special _kind_ of rapist, in the way that he'd never truly been caught.

"You _fucking_?" Joker asked her, tongue darting out against his bottom lip again.

"No." She tried not to spit out the word.

" _U_ sed to?"

"Not even once." Her words didn't waver. She was telling the truth.

"Been to his _place_?"

"Never."

"He been to _yours_?"

"Without asking."

"So you've _never_ met him outside of work?"

June thought about it, the chance encounters outside the grocery store and the coincidental appearances Colter had made outside her apartment building. She shook her head. "No. Not voluntarily."

"Then it ain't _private_ information." Joker concluded, waving his hands openly as they dropped back to the table. June, although reluctantly, had to admit, he did have a fair point. " _Everything_ that goes _on_ in here-" He motioned around him, "-I _know_ about. But _you,_ " he pointed to her, "You're _new_ to me. I ain't _never_ seen you here, not for the _whole_ year. I mean, uh, _most_ of it I spent down in extreme _isolation_ , but that ain't the _point_." He rolled his eyes, trying to get back to his question, "How _long_ have you worked here?"

"Had an internship at nineteen." She let it slip, wishing she'd bitten her tongue. _Who shares that kinda shit with their patients?_

"And you _are_...?" He arched a brow, awaiting an answer.

"Twenty-two." She told him, as he mouthed the numbers along with her. Talking about her age would do no harm, surely.

He smirked and turned his head, raising his brows in a somewhat suggestive way as he licked his lips, " _Mm_ , you're a little _young_ to be treating the likes of _me_ , aren't you?"

She put her pen down, clasping her hands together. This session wasn't seemingly going to be much worth noting down after all. She said, "I volunteered to treat you."

"This, I _do_ know," He nodded, wetting his mouth before it settled into a straight line, "D'you wanna _know_ how old _I_ am, doll?"

June peered down from his face and the first thing she fixed her attention on was the glaring orange of his shirt as she tried to avoid his question. The number tag glared back at her: 4479. This conversation was taking stranger turns than she'd expected, in a strangely mundane way. "I, um, I already read your case files, it's alrigh-"

"But you never heard it from _me_ ," He pointed out, pursing his lips as though his observation was pure genius. He was quiet for a second and June realised it was to get her attention, so she could look up at him. She did, and he shot her a disappointed look. "It's, uh, it's _rude_ to base facts around what you've _heard_ , Junie. That's _gossip_. D'you _gossip_?"

"No," she said, although even she couldn't deny her own curiosity. She liked to know things, liked to know _people_ , and how they worked and what they were doing. She liked certain gossip as it told her a lot about the person who was _spreading_ the rumour, not who the subject of it was. This was why Mara fascinated her- she was the papergirl for gossip, doing her daily rounds through the office and staff rooms, spreading things she was sure she'd heard before she'd even finished processing it. June had been the subject of some of these rumours, although Mara believed that she was blind to it. Every story was wrong, and only lasted a week, but they were dangerous. And June liked how they circled around people like ripples, always multiplying, growing exponentially before vanishing, waiting for the next drop to come along.

Joker's voice, followed by a daring nod, brought her back. " _Guess_ how old I am."

June sighed, folding her hands together. She decided to play along, first going off by what the case papers had told her. "Twenty-five."

He hissed through his teeth and shook his head, "Not _quite_ , Junie, not _quite_. If I were only a mere _three_ years older than you, I wouldn't be _in_ terested in _having_ this conversation."

She nibbled at her lip, trying again with a fresh pair of eyes. She took in his physique: lean but muscular, the athletic type; then the features of his face: wrinkled in all the right places, obviously worn but not sagging, aged enough to say he'd lived his life well, but not enough to say he was ready to pull his back out at any given moment. The smile lines by his eyes. She took another shot in the dark, but almost held back in case she offended him. "Twenty-sev..." His brows knotted at her guess and she could only guess higher, "Um. Thirty?"

She almost anticipated him to yell at her or something, but was relieved when he slowly broke out into a wide smile. "Second _guess_ , Junie! You're _smarter_ than I _thought_."

She let go of a breathless laugh, suddenly clearing her throat as soon as it left her mouth. She was almost about to say, _what, you're thirty?_ But she held her tongue, not wanting to sound rude. Smoothing down her skirt, she tried looking away from him again, almost shy from the unexpected praise she got. _From a killer, no less_. "I, um... lucky guess, I... guess."

At her awkward words, he laughed in disbelief, shaking his head. She was too easy. _Too easy_. An open book, he was right. And he'd make sure he flipped through every page, read every word, before burning her into nothing. This one wasn't gonna slip through his fingers. Junie was simply too fun for him to just give the silent treatment. No, that'd be insulting to the girl's intelligence.

He went to speak, but she let her words loose again with an awkward smile. "You don't... look thirty. Doctor reports thought you were twenty-five."

He didn't believe her words. Compliments! He'd dug out a _compliment_! How supple and innocuous his little Junie Stoltz was, already showering him with compliments as though she were... comfortable in her situation. Here came the butterfly, stuck in the spider's web. What pretty wings she had. Too bad he wanted to cut them off.

He smiled, tongue in cheek. " _Watch_ you don't-ah, butter me up _too_ much, princess. Else you'll have to start making _weekend_ trips by my _cell_."

June's smile slowly shifted into an open-mouthed, silent and non-existing gasp of astonishment and confusion. She swore she'd imagined the words she'd just heard but the way he looked at her, the way his tongue poked around the inside of his scars and the way he was slowly tapping his fingers on the table... what she'd heard was very much real, and had very much come out of the Joker's mouth. She wasn't sure how on earth to respond to that kind of comment- she just sat there with her mouth hung open like a damned fish trying to find her breath.

June blinked rapidly and swallowed, stammering to herself as her eyes drifted to the bright red rotten apple beside the Joker, checked her watch for the time; anything, anything to avoid meeting his eyes again. She thanked God it'd already been an hour- it was time for her to escort him back to his cell.

She finally mustered up the courage to speak, scrambling for her once again blank clipboard and her silver pen, slowly getting up. "I, um... I better take you back to your cell."

Joker slowly rose in time for her to step back warily, and he observed how her hands obsessively began to tug down on the hem of her skirt, as if trying to adjust how she looked all of a sudden, which he hadn't exactly caught her doing besides the spontaneous finger-curling of her hair. He kept a straight face when he asked lowly, "You gonna _consider_ my prop-o- _sition_ , Junie, or...?"

"Dr. Stoltz." Her eyes were exactly like a fragile doe's at this point, scared and confused but oh, _oh_ , so curious. "And I'm not allowed to do that. It's not professional, 4479."

"Dammit, Junie, I _told_ you not to call me-"

"If it's all the same to you, patient 4479, I'll stick to what's on the paper."

And he complied, maybe for the first time in his life.


	5. Chapter 4: Spit in the Palm

_**Lmaooo not that happy about the start of this chapter, but alas, it's here. Quite a few important things- also keep your eye on Junie's audio diary. No spoilers, but it plays an important role later on in the story... aaand I've said too much! ;)**_

* * *

 **Chapter 4: Spit in the Palm**

It was eleven o'clock that Thursday night when tired and troubled Juniper Stoltz turned off the television, sinking back into her sofa as she rubbed her irritated and sleep-deprived eyes. Scattered around her was an ocean of doctor's reports and the same old repeated case files of the Joker's- _patient 4479's_ \- and again, she found nothing in those documents that gave her mind any peace. She wasn't sure what she was looking for in those notes; perhaps comfort, or advice, anything those failed doctors could tell her about the clown that she hopelessly wished to cure, just to put her mind at ease for once. But this had to be the tenth night in a row where she'd stayed up all night rereading those damned documents, practically able to recite it all by memory if she wanted to. It was as if each time she opened the blue folder full of those papers, she'd somehow expect a fresh new one to appear from thin air, listing all the answers to every question she'd ever asked. The answer, she already knew, and it was simple: _use my clairvoyance, look at his memories, write it all down and go_. But she knew it wasn't that easy. It was wrong. She'd had that gift graced upon her unwillingly; she'd been studying Psychology for years and she worked for these sessions. And not only could the memory-meddling hurt her patient, but herself as well, what with all the migraines and nosebleeds it elicited if she went back far enough.

Sometimes she wished her mother were here to tell her what to do.

Sighing heavily, June got up from the sofa and crossed the cluttered living room to her bookcase, picking up any stray papers and stacking them on the end of the coffee table, which sat rather neatly in front of the old television set she simply couldn't afford to replace. The screen bulged out like a bubble and emitted static whenever she turned it on. It reminded her a little bit of her childhood- turning on the TV to watch the Saturday morning cartoons and pressing her hand to the screen to feel the static, listening to the near-silent popping that accompanied the white noise as it vanished. Mama would playfully scare her with stories of how the static was deathly radioactive and would make little June's brain all fuzzy and mutate beyond repair, but even at age seven, she knew that her Mama was only joking. Although, that would explain the clairvoyance... if she weren't lying.

She chuckled softly at the memory and looked at the picture frame atop her bookcase- her and Mama at graduation day. The picture always made her laugh, as it was supposed to be a nice photo where she'd smile calmly at the camera while her mother would lovingly sling her arm around her shoulder, but instead, eighteen-year-old June was stood like a stiff board, her shoulders hunched, clutching her diploma like her life depended on it, and behind her calm and simple smile, her eyes were wide with joy and excitement, barely able to contain her feelings as Mama wrapped her arms around her, grinning gleefully. June's hair was the same then as it was now, wild and free, curls that bounced with a whole life of its own, and even back then you could tell, with how her hair sprang out the bottom of her graduation hat to settle just on her shoulders, Mama's hair practically matching. It was May- not even halfway through that odd, odd year. They both looked so happy. So carefree. That despite the struggle of growing up with June's abnormal powers and the daily reminder that over time, her clairvoyance worked better albeit more intrusive, the two made family of each other, happy despite everything else.

June picked up the photo and brushed her thumb across the glass, wiping away the dust that'd collected there. Simpler times. Before...

No. She bit back the reminder and placed the photograph back down, setting her mind back on what she intended to get in the first place. _Audio diary, right_. She found it sitting atop a pile of books on the bookcase, and she snatched it.

June pressed the record button. It blinked red. She cleared her throat.

"Thursday..." She yawned, carrying the audio diary with her into the kitchen. "...fifth of March. It's been a long week, so I haven't had much time to record any entries. The Joker is..." Her eyes searched the cabinet for a clean mug as she thought of the right phrase to describe him. "...an enigma. Unpredictable. Half the time he's making jokes and the other half he's talking about... me." She swallowed at the reminder of how yesterday's session had turned out, the constant questions of her, her and Colter, her age, her likes and dislikes, all over the cafeteria table. The rotten apple, rolling across the table to her. She laughed to herself, "All I know is that he doesn't like colour TV and he likes the song Footloose. Although on Tuesday he said he understands the fear of darkness." She brought down a mug from the cabinet and started to prepare her coffee, boiling the water. "He has an interesting perspective on it. That he thinks it's good that we fear some things, because it's instinctual and has helped us survive for so long," She said, leaning against the counter. "He's intelligent. Smart. Aware. Our session actually started to veer off course on Tuesday and he began to... point out the social injustices of everyday life." June paused to bite her knuckle, anxious as she remembered how personal he got, how he'd lured out her inner demons. Dr. Arkham. Colter. How goddamn long she'd plead to get the same job as everyone else.

June would never dare to say it out loud or even admit it to herself, but thinking back on his observations, she almost... admired him. Or it. His _views_ , she meant- excluding the murdering part, of course. He was smart and quick, witty and unafraid to speak his mind; he understood how things worked and wasn't naïve like she was, didn't try to hide the frustration behind polite smiles and pursed lips like she did, wasn't scared of Colter or anyone who put him in his place like she _felt_ \- but it was still all wrong. Such intelligence and awareness was wasted on a killer, who took out his anger on innocent people and mutilated corpses instead of the faces of those he opposed and did everyone wrong, he should do everyone a favour and-

The kettle whistled, eliciting a shrill yelp from June as she held her chest, spinning around to see the audio diary on the counter, red light still flickering. Picking it up, she tried to wrap the entry up. "U-um, so yeah, he's a challenge. I'm... kinda looking forward to seeing him again though..." She shyly said, as if sharing a secret only she knew. The confession fell upon her with a strange weight, as if her excitement was tying her down- how dare she enjoy her job, right?

With a heavy sigh, she pressed the button and ended the entry, before putting the audio diary back down and holding her head, eyes closed stressfully. Her head was all over the place. The Joker was irritating her to the point where trying to work with him was such a chore, despite her wanting to do it. Sometimes she swore she was going crazy...

As she poured the boiling water into her coffee mug, she stirred in the grains, lost in her thoughts. At least it was Friday tomorrow.

Just as she was about to go and slump back into her sofa, halfway upon leaving the kitchen there was a thumping knock at her door, a triple staccato beat, _knock knock knock_. June's eyes narrowed as she checked the time on her watch, the hand almost ticking to midnight. Who the hell would knock at this time? Maybe it was the landlord telling her to go the hell to sleep- maybe the lights were keeping her neighbours up somehow- or maybe it was Mrs. Curnow next door asking if she'd found her dead cat yet.

June sighed and staggered over to the door, bare feet slapping against the hard floor as she rehearsed her speech: _I owe you my greatest apologies, Mrs. Curnow, but I'm afraid that Smokey has passed away. Unfortunately I saw his dead and half-rotten carcass on the side of the road on the way to work last week, so please stop asking. Sincerely..._

But as she twisted all of the locks and opened the door, she wasn't greeted with the small and frail figure of the old lady, but instead a looming tower of a man, made of muscle and stinking of beer and stale cigarettes. Her neck slowly bent upwards as she met the eyes of her late night guest, and then her stomach sank.

June stammered in confusion, "O-oh, um, good evening, Colter." She pressed herself between the gap of the door, trying hard to hide both herself and her apartment without somehow angering him. He was obviously drunk, with his tie twisted awkwardly around his unbuttoned uniform collar and his hair dishevelled, his eyes glassy and red. Her hands clenched around the coffee cup nervously as she tried to figure out why he was here.

He grinned like a cheshire cat, the sides of his mouth stretched in a grotesque way as his golden tooth glinted in the dim lighting of the corridor outside. "Evenin', Junie. How come you're up so late?" His speech was drawled and his breath stank of alcohol, not that she expected anything different.

"I-I could ask you the same thing. And stop calling me Junie." She coughed in trying to steady her trembling voice.

The bastard even had the audacity to try and open the door but when June fought back discreetly, he settled for just leaning on the doorframe, his face disgustingly close to hers. She was suddenly very conscious of how little she was wearing, only decked out in a stretched t-shirt and her underwear, a pair of boxer shorts that did nothing at all to hide her legs, and when his eyes trailed down to look at them, she even tried to step behind the red door as if it'd protect her.

"Colter, seriously, what're you doing here? It's nearly midnight."

He simply laughed at her attempt to be stern, staggering back on his heels. "Just wanted to come see ya, Junie. I've been feeling very lonely with you ignorin' me."

"You're drunk," she stated as if he had no idea, then tried closing her door again. "Goodnight, Colter."

His palm slammed between the door and stopped her from closing it, as he hiccuped in laughter. "C'mon, toots. Just let me in. I've been needin' to hold a little somethin' warm at night..." His voice was slow and as soft as he could make it, but of course she didn't trust him. He'd come here for a reason. Staring into his eyes, she saw nothing but lust. Nothing but the perverse gaze of a man who could never take no for an answer. They stared in silence for what seemed like minutes but was barely even seconds, June's breath hitched as she tried pressing her shoulder to the door, but Colter would only stop it from closing every time, rendering her attempts useless, and it was at this moment where she wished Mrs. Curnow _would_ harass her about her cat, just to distract him. Fear coursed through her as thick as her own blood.

"Colter, please, go ho-" Her voice was cut off as he pushed against the door, nearly forcing it open, but June slammed herself against it until he let go, and as soon as the door was closed, her fingers scrambled frantically for the locks.

The worst part was, this wasn't exactly the first time this had happened.

June gasped inwardly as Colter's hands beat on the door, shaking it hard and trying to twist the doorknob as she slid and turned every lock and chain, all four of them, and only when she pressed her back against it in relief did she let go of the breath she was holding, and swore to herself as she looked down at the coffee spills on her clothes and the floor.

Colter continued to pound on the door, even as she rushed to the kitchen to put down her mug and clean up the mess. "C'mon, Junie! Junie!" He slammed his fist against the door and whined, "June! Open the door, baby!" His hiccups of protest still managed to scare her, even when she knew that he was too drunk to kick the door down... hopefully.

The thumping was incessant, and June, trying to hold her breath as if to silence herself so he wouldn't hear her, looked for her phone around the living room. Heavily breathing, she whispered, "C'mon, c'mon, where are you..." and there it was, underneath the piles of paperwork on her coffee table, her mobile phone; grabbing it, she desperately called the first person she could think of, Mara, but after the fifth ring there was no answer, and she knew that at midnight, nobody else would pick up. Should she call the cops? The thought was tempting, but stupid. They had more important things to worry about than some guy outside her door, surely. This was Gotham City. They'd think she was just some prank caller.

Colter's voice boomed, "Junie! Ju-unie! Let me in, sweetheart. I just wanna talk ta' you."

"Go away!" She cried, standing as far away from the door as possible, hugging her arms to her chest. This was a nightmare.

 _Thud_. "Open!" _Thud_. "The damn!" _Thud_. "Door!"

Biting back screams of fear and frustration, she couldn't handle it anymore. Switching off every light and electronic, she retreated back to her bedroom, feeling her way around in the dark. This had worked before, just waiting in hiding until he eventually forgot she was in here. She stepped around the piles of laundry as the knocking on her door continued like a broken record, and when she fell on her bed, she crawled under the crumpled bedsheets and curled into a ball, holding her trembling self in hopes that he'd go away.

The horrifying truth was that this wasn't out of the blue for Juniper Stoltz. This was Colter Barnes in his purest, most primal form, who would stop at nothing to get her. This was the third time he'd camped outside her apartment, drunk, hopelessly singing obscene ballads in trying to get her to let him in. She'd known him for so long at this point that she couldn't truly plan a day for herself without the reminder that Colter, somehow, someway, would ruin it all for her. It was awful. Ever since that internship at Arkham she'd had when she was nineteen, moved fresh from New York back to Gotham, he'd always been there, like an everlasting presence, a cloud that never stopped following her, a shadow. And no matter how many times she cried or begged or screamed at him to go away, he'd never leave.

Pulling the covers over her head, she tried shutting her eyes and going to sleep, but it wouldn't work. He kept knocking. Kept calling her name. Told the landlord to fuck off when he tried to interfere, and knowing the weasel landlord, he did exactly as he was told. June felt trapped in her own home, unable to call for help, unable to do anything but hide herself and try to sleep.

It continued for six hours. And Juniper Stoltz didn't sleep that night.

* * *

The morning after was equivalent to the feeling of being tortured. June, sleepless and exhausted, still trudged her way to work after Colter had left, which was only ten minutes before her alarm for work went off. It was no exaggeration when it was said she hadn't slept that night- each time her eyes fell shut and she was sure she was finally about to drift off to sleep, Colter either shouted or knocked to catch her attention. He'd asked her thirty-two times to let him in. Called her a bitch sixteen times. Asked to fuck her twenty-eight times. Although after the first two hours she'd lost count.

She'd ignored anyone who dared to speak to her when she got to Arkham, simply pointing to the bags under her eyes when Mara asked her if she was feeling alright. That conversation was short but not so sweet, as June passed through the main office Mara had asked, "Morning, June. How you feeling?"

That was when June pointed to her eyes, lifelessly.

"Oh. Colter's called in sick. Can you believe that?"

"No."

"Okay."

And after that, June left.

Now she was in the interviewing room, sat across the table from Joker, who was playing with a loose seam on his sleeve, wrapping it around his finger to see how many times he could do it before the end of his finger turned blue, seemingly content with himself. She hadn't really tried to speak to him as most of her efforts went into keeping her eyes open and her head balanced, making sure she kept her eyes on Joker no matter what.

It was funny; being Friday, she'd seen how more and more disheveled he'd become throughout the week, and today he had a wild case of bed-head, his hair knotted and sticking up on one side, the green already beginning to fade. She watched for almost twenty minutes how he'd just keep wrapping the orange thread around his finger, mumbling to himself incoherently and indirectly to her. He'd noticed her silence, her lack of attention, but didn't care enough to ask.

Nearly thirty minutes into the session, she finally spoke.

"Have you ever tried art therapy?"

Inquisitive and owl-eyed Dr. Junie Stoltz asked the question as mundanely as though she were on a date, asking him what music he liked, or what his favourite movie was, her voice shrill and slow with wonder. Her head hung tiredly to the side, cheek propped up by her hand and the elbow she had resting on the table had begun to ache, but she couldn't risk just... falling asleep. Colter had been a waking nightmare, and here she was enduring the aftermath.

Finally letting go of the thread, the blood rushing back to his finger, Joker mimicked her pose, although subconsciously. Her sudden lack of vigour was oddly contagious.

"Yeah, I _have_ ," He answered, slowly licking his lips. "It's called _murder_."

June narrowed her eyes at him, but barely had the energy to bother scolding him. One blink and she was sure she'd fall asleep. "Joker, please. Just straight answers today..." She paused to yawn and when she settled, picked her words back up. "...I'm too tired for jokes."

He'd noticed the dark circles under her eyes as soon as she walked in, but didn't question her in case it pissed her off. Last thing he needed was her whining in the back of his head, ' _that's private information'_. This time, though, he raised the statement, "You _look_ like you haven't _slept_."

She huffed out a totally emotionless laugh. "You'd be right."

 _Join the club_ , he'd say, although his insomnia never bothered him. It was a choice to him; he'd just sleep whenever he _fell_ asleep. Could be in bed, could be at the lunch table or even during a session- although Junie hadn't had the privilege to witness that yet.

He knotted his brows to fake concern. "How _come_?"

June was currently in a state where she didn't properly think before she talked, just let the words roll out of her mouth whenever she felt like it. "Bastard Colter stayed outside my apartment for six hours. By the time he left, I had to go to work. And now I'm here."

The language that came out of her mouth was... enjoyable to hear. So full of life and honest. _Bastard_. That was the first time he'd heard her swear, he thinks. She spat the word, _bastard_. It said a lot. He liked it.

Joker slowly sat upright, palms flat on the table, and double checked to make sure he'd heard her right. "He... _stood_ outside your a _part_ ment?"

She nodded slowly, eyes barely open.

" _All_ night?"

Nod.

"For _six_ hours?"

"Six and a half, actually." She smiled sarcastically. "His motivation impresses me. Too bad he isn't motivated enough to leave me alone."

At this point, Joker was nosy about the situation, wanting to know more. He knew that Colter had issues- his visits to Joker's cell simply to beat on him showed it, and he hit _hard_ \- but stalking women was a different ballpark. " _Did_ n't you, uh, call the _police_?"

She scoffed, "The GCPD's busy hunting down rapists and murderers and they're still searching their own department for corrupt cops. You think they'll just drop everything to drive away some dude who decided to take camp outside my door? They don't care."

Joker smirked to himself, the way she felt about the cops in the city- she was suddenly one in a million. Usually every staff member of Arkham sided with them; the cops were the shining example of good and justice in this city, and half the criminals they caught they brought to Arkham anyway, so they were mostly forced to be friends from that reason alone. But even Junie could see how blind they actually were, much like him in a way, which piqued his interest. To share his beliefs, his ideals, in the way he did, meant something. And to think, it was his _doctor_ , of all people...

"Don't _trust_ cops, Junie?"

"It's not that." She shook her head, tucking loose curls behind her ear before propping her head up again. "It's that they've got priorities, and I respect that. I don't want their best men to come and save me from my ivory tower while there's a mugging going on just around the corner. People could die while I'm just... sat there twiddling my thumbs."

"Afraid of _guilt_ , then?"

Junie's mouth moved to answer him, but suddenly her eyes locked onto him, slowly turning empty as her focus remained somewhere else. There she goes, mind drifting. He could always see on her face whenever she was deep in thought, and this was one of those moments where she'd suddenly lost all grip on where she was, forgetting her surroundings entirely. He didn't know what she was thinking, didn't care much to ask, but it was always this- her mind wandering, smile dropping- that made him feel like she had secrets. Secrets he sort of wanted to dig up.

And then, she was back as soon as she'd left, blinking hard.

Guilt? A strong word for someone like her. But June still had to agree, "Something like that."

There would've been an awkward silence, had Joker not deliberately tried to cycle through different questions to occupy himself. He had to keep it going, keep her awake, get his answers now that she was too tired to notice that he was digging for them. " _Why_ don't you tell Dr. _Arkham_ about it?"

June rolled her eyes. "He hates me. Only listens to me if it's about a patient. About you," she said, before finally lifting her head and sitting up, palms folded on the table in front of her. "Which brings me to the question..." _Yawn_. "Art therapy. Have you tried art therapy?"

Joker, trying to resist another witty retort, admittedly thought about it. Art therapy. Art. Strange. The word felt somehow familiar to him, in the way that he knew exactly what to do when it was said. This strange instinct within him, as in, _yes, I know Art, she's an old friend of mine_ , yet he couldn't even remember ever picking up a paintbrush in his life, let alone actually paint anything. Or draw. Or sculpt or sketch. His artistic merit had never stretched further than posing and mutilating a corpse, or painting his own face. And that was with his bare hands, using tools no more meticulous than a knife.

But the words that spouted in his head: art... artist... canvas... stretcher... oil, pastel, acrylic, charcoal... how did he know all this? Perhaps he'd read about it in a magazine somewhere, or seen it while searching for face paint. _Funny how that works._

He sighed, trying to chase his thoughts away. "No. I, uh, _haven't_."

June's shoulders dropped in relief. Finally, something she could work with. "Would you like to try it?"

He eyed her suspiciously, "What would tha- _t_ , uh, en _tail_?"

"Well," she began, rubbing her eyes before blinking. "The sessions would take place once a week. Or more, if you find it works for you. You can paint, sketch, sculpt, anything you want. Use kiddie crayons if you want to."

"Will I _be_ -ah, under super _vision_?" He asked.

June reluctantly nodded.

"What if I _wanna_ , uh... paint naughty _pictures_ , though?" He smiled crookedly, raising a brow. June swallowed dryly. "An artist must be in his _best_ state of mind if he, uh, wants to _work_. Can't, uh, _con_ -cen- _trate_ when he's being watched."

She laced her fingers together in her lap, where he couldn't see her squirm. But he saw how her shoulders had raised to her neck, her tired lashes fluttering dazedly. "Well, if, um... if painting like that... helps you, I'm sure the doctor supervising you won't interfere. I could sit in with you, if you'd like."

Joker's smirk widened as he chuckled. "Well, _actually_ , Junie, I was hoping you'd be my _model_."

She shot him an unimpressed glare, but under the table her hands tightened together, and her thighs, unwillingly.

He scoffed when he saw her aloof reaction. "Quit _pouting_ , Junie. It's called a _joke_." Although thinking about it, he wouldn't mind her being his muse. She had the right face for painting, the big round eyes that would be painted nicely with the right swirl of a brush, the curved shoulders that could easily be mimicked by the brush gliding along the canvas as smooth as water. Quick spatters of paint for the freckles, fingertips to get the right frizz in her hair... how did he know how to do this again?

June stuttered defensively, "Quit it with the... the..." She almost didn't want to say it. Flirting? Was he?

"Th _e._..?" He dared her to say it.

As she tried to find her voice, she found herself in a kind of trance, eyes grazing quickly over the features of his face, stern and shaped, sculpted like art (not too shabby, actually), and to avoid eye contact she glanced down to his hands on the table, much like she'd done the Wednesday before, her thoughts lost between the web of his thumb and her concentration laced around his fingers, just like that orange thread had once been mere minutes ago. Dextrous... long... clench his fists and his knuckles turn white... veins protruding... she wondered if he'd ever choked anyone to death with them, or choked them for... _other_ , somehow less innocent reasons. She imagined them moving. In motion. Hands around a gun, fingers looped in the trigger. Juggling a knife into the air and catching it expertly by the handle. Tying rope. Tightening. And then she imagined them mundanely; his hand twisting a doorknob or tugging at the hem of his shirt, un-looping a belt ( _his_ belt?), pulling... pulling...

For the short minute that she didn't talk to him, the Joker had watched her closely, her hazy eyes glazed over with a certain kind of distance to them, like her body was here but her mind was not- and following her line of sight eventually lead him to looking at his own hands, wondering what she'd seen on them. He turned them over and looked at his palms, the faded paint collected in the creases of skin that laid there, like lines in the soil waiting to sow seeds. There was nothing out of place there, so why was she looking at them?

June's eyes flickered up to look at him and her face flushed red, freckled cheeks turning pink as she began to realise where she was. What she was _thinking_. And her thoughts were not far from being totally, completely, out of order- she should not be thinking or even _looking_ at him in that way. Not her _patient_.

Clearing her throat, she changed the subject before he could talk. "So, um. Painting. How- how'd you feel about painting?"

His answer came quick. "Don't _know_. Don't recall ever _trying_ it." But he just simply wasn't buying it, whatever plastic façade she was trying to put on- he'd seen how detached she'd become. A little daydreamer. The girl's mind wandered far too much for her to be concentrating. Then again, maybe it was something he could take advantage of...

June's mouth quirked to one corner, almost stumped at his answer. "Do you... think you'd like to?"

"Junie, don't be getting my _hopes_ up that I'll be painting-ah, extravagan- _t_ works of _art_ when I only so much _know_ how to draw a _stick_ figure."

"You don't have to be good at it to enjoy it," She softly said with a smile, her voice somewhat falsely reassuring. "If it helps you to relax and calm down, you won't care if you're good at it or not..." Long yawn this time. "Trust me."

 _Trust me_. Odd thing for her to be saying.

Joker raised his brows at her, arms folded, suspiciously shaking his head. "You ain't _convincing_ me much, Junie."

Suddenly, she was overwhelmed. His answer, his stubbornness- situated in his spot like a goddamn rock, immovable- it was once interesting but had now begun to frustrate her, and God, _God_ , she could _cry_. Why couldn't he just take what he was given?

She pressed her hands to her face and groaned in frustration, the crinkles between her brows folding together as she squeezed her eyes shut; and this was the most human he'd ever seen her. Behind that mask of a capable doctor was little Junie who felt so much, who felt enough to be able to drop the act and simply emote- and this was it, there she was, right before him, her elbows on the table, his little sleep-deprived plaything, and she groaned and grit her teeth in mental agony, in annoyance, in simply being pushed to the edge of her own emotions.

"For the love of-" She took a deep breath in and sighed, her shoulders dropping dramatically. "Please. I'm asking you to just- I'm _begging_ here. Just cooperate with me once. Just _once_ ," she whined, her mouth almost quivering into a pout. He bit his lip as to not burst out laughing, teeth clamped hard as he watched in amazement at how easily she'd cracked. "Just go to one art therapy session. Please, I-" She stopped for a moment, trying to regain her composure, and leant over the table to try and speak to him, to reason with the insane man before her. "I really need this. If I can show Dr. Arkham that I can do one, just one thing right, if I make a little bit of progress, I'll be happy. We've completed nothing. You tell me nothing. I shouldn't have to beg my own patient, yet here I am."

There was a silence. And then the Joker laughed, a tiny giggle that seethed through his amused smile, as he nibbled the crook of his finger in thought. She wasn't walking into his trap; she was waltzing right through it, fingers dancing over every string in his web, plucking, _God_ , she was practically singing for him to snatch her. This girl was so simplistically supple that he'd had her asking him favours and it was only their fifth session. She was just too. Much. _Fun_.

He chuckled at her, index finger aimlessly tracing a line on the table. "You're a _curious_ one, aren't you, Junie?"

Blinking tiredly at him, it took her a minute before she croaked, "Dr. Stoltz."

This time he didn't hold back as he laughed, just a soft huff of glee and all she did was watch him, eyes watered with lethargy and frustration, perhaps she was upset. It got worse now, he was doubling over and he couldn't stop laughing, not _at_ his silly doctor but _with_ her; at the fact that after all of that unprofessionalism, that pathetic begging and that guttural groan of frustration she still dared to ask him to call her by her formal title as if it mattered. As if this conversation alone hadn't already passed the boundary of doctor, of patient, of whatever made-up social barrier that separated the two, and he was laughing, so much laughing that it hurt her to listen to, almost as bad as Colter calling her by her name. It was endless anarchy, his laughter, dancing in his mouth- doctor! _Doctor_! And she still wanted him to call her _doctor_!

She was so embarrassed that she could've cried, and she dipped her head to hide behind her wild curls in hopes that somehow he wouldn't see her. Couldn't she just have one thing go right for her?

Eventually, Joker's laughs died down into soft grumbling giggle, and his eyes were on Junie, always on Junie, as he was so sure that from this moment on she was his plaything, his toy, the doctor he'd keep just for a little longer before he decided to call it quits on this little charade.

He was game. He was _game_. His only question was, of course, was she?

Leaning forward over the table, he rested his elbows outwardly as he kept his eyes on her, never tearing away his gaze as if the second he'd look away, she'd disappear.

"A' _right_ ," He finally hummed, tongue tracing his lip. "Let's m _a_ ke a _deal_."

"Deal?" The doe-eyed girl asked, brows knotted together in hesitation.

"Yeah," He said, deeply breathing. "A _deal_."

Curiously, she tilted her head and arched a brow, playing with a strand of black hair around her finger. She didn't much anticipate what his idea of a 'deal' was- perhaps a gun or a knife or maybe just that she'd go away. She prayed that it be something simple, for her own sake.

"What kind of deal?" She questioned.

"Nothing _major_ , Junie." He shook his head to position himself comfortably, eyes piercing her skin, her rounded features. "I'll _do_ this, uh, _art_ therap _y_. I'll do _any_ thing you _want_ me to do- I'll _sit_ , I'll stand, I'll _dance_ , sing, paint you a pretty god _damn_ picture of the Mona _Lisa_ if you want. I'll be _ha_ ve and co- _op_ -erate. Anything you _want_ , dear."

The bittersweet nickname lingered on the front of his tongue and the back of his teeth for so long in her mind, and June hadn't realised that with every empty promise he'd made her, she'd leaned forward closer and closer in wonder, in obliviousness, in simple curiosity, just to hear what he'd say next. How could he call her something so sweetly while he still managed to stare her in the eyes- those wondrous black voids that sucked her in completely. Dear. Deer. Doe. And indeed she was, caught completely in the pitch headlights that didn't shine, but blacked out. She was in his shadow completely and it loomed, endless.

"Bu- _t_."

And she felt cheated, completely torn away from the false goodness he so unwillingly held. The confusion in her eyes when he said, " _I_ want a _TV_."

The silence that followed was undeniably awkward, and June thought for a moment that he was joking. Yet, he didn't laugh, nor even smiled, and knew that he was being entirely serious. "You want... a TV?"

"Y _ea_ h."

She shook her head and sighed. "No, Joker, look, I can't just bring you a-a television set for your cell, I can't-"

" _No_ , not my _cell_ , silly," He tutted, waving his hand. "There's a TV _here_. In the recre _ational_ room. Where the _bett_ er patients spend their, uh, _leis_ urely _time_. Playing _chess_ or whatever losers do..." The last observation was said as a silent mutter under his breath to which she could barely hear.

June knew about the rec room, although she hadn't had the chance to go in there. But how on earth could she convince Dr. Arkham? Why would he agree to let Joker mingle with the other patients? It was promoted anarchy.

"I don't... I don't know..." She nibbled her lip, twiddling her thumbs.

"C' _mon_ ," He'd lowered his voice to a babyish whisper, almost raising out of his seat with each inch further he leant over the table. He wanted to tempt her, draw her in- soft voice- she'd come for the honey, not the vinegar. June could hear his tongue tracing the interiors of his mouth, audible clicking as his palms pressed down on the table so hard that his fingertips turned white. "Anything you _want_ , doc. _You're_ the one in con _trol_ here, I'm giving _you_ the reigns."

As June raised her head, she was face to face with him, this clown-clad killer in assigned disguise. The hard, vibrant orange that was simply too harsh to look at, causing her eyes to drift to look at things she shouldn't. His murderous hands, his empty eyes, his lying mouth. Red lips that didn't smile without being forced to by his scars. How gruesome they were now that she could see them up close- and the _symmetry_! There was no such thing! The right side was a clean cut line, a swift glide of the blade, and the left side bore such mottled and uneven skin that the scar was simply a cluster of thick tissue, and she couldn't possibly guess how it happened. Touching them- whilst dangerous and completely unconventional- was a dream of hers.

She blinked hard. _Observation_. Observation, not a dream. Professionalism.

"S _o_...?" The Joker's voice made itself heard one more as the vowel stretched on for what seemed like minutes, echoing around the room and circling her entirely. "That a _deal_ , Junie?"

 _Screw it._

"You've _got_ to swear on it." She sternly said, knowing exactly just how dangerously stupid she was being. But anything for some recognition, right?

Joker's mouth soon stretched into a malicious smirk as he sat back in his chair, arms folded. "D'ya bel _ieve_ in _pinky_ swears? Spitting in the _palm_? How'd you wanna go _about_ it, sweetheart?"

"Just-" She rubbed her eyes irritably as she gestured with wide hands."Just give me your word, okay?"

He shrugged nonchalantly, nodding. "Lucky for _you_ , I _am_ a man of my _word_." His words were vague, his words were so unidentifiable to her ears, and his words were ones that lingered in the air between them both, just out of her reach to understand. Why was he so goddamn unreadable? "How _ever,_ Junie, I hope _you're_ as truthful as _you_ claim to be, too. There's no bargain on _your_ end for _ly_ ing, so..." He stopped to smile. "Like I _said_ , _you_ got _all_ the cards here."

She nodded, tired eyes suddenly awake as they drifted to the clock on the back wall. She had to go. Go before her lethargy got her into more absurdity.

June took her things in silence, standing up and routinely smoothing down her skirt as the guard on the other side knocked to let her know that the session was up. "Ten o'clock," He said (he was some other guard, not Just Kenny).

"Junie." Joker's voice stopped her from turning toward the door, and she looked at him, awaiting an answer. It was so peculiar: he just sat there and didn't say anything, looking at her like she was something else entirely. It wasn't hatred, it wasn't happiness, it wasn't anger, it wasn't irritation; it was something so undecipherable that even he didn't know why he called her name. It was right on the tip of his tongue, what he wanted to say, but even then, he just didn't know. It didn't even taste like a threat. Just the confusing feeling of wanting to lock the door so she couldn't leave. _Five more minutes_. _I have to devour her precious little head for five more minutes._

"What is it?" She softly asked.

Curious. Curious. Curious. He'd thought of the word a million times and it was the only one that circled in his head when he'd caught himself looking at her, the only apparent emotion that swam in her eyes apart from the confusion and the discomfort and the ever-lingering sadness; his Junie Stoltz was _much_ different from anyone else's, _his_ Junie Stoltz was curious, the curious little doe with the wild head of hair. And he _hated_ it. He hated this. She was so different from him, so blunt and apparent and so simple that she could never work with him, and yet he saw a kindred spirit within her, a twin, like they were bound together by more than just medical records and the table they both sat over in the therapy room. He could never guess what it was, could never figure it out in any mundane, simple way, but there was something _inside_ Junie, something that couldn't be seen by the human eye, and it haunted her. He had a knack of seeing other people's demons and usually he'd toy with them until they broke. But her? Junie? He couldn't see it. Couldn't figure her out. Maybe if he'd slice her open from top to bottom it'd all spill out then, her secrets, her ghosts, the skeletons in her closet- and the one in her skin, _haha._

Joker eventually shook his head with a crooked smile, dismissing her. "Nothing," He said, and her tired eyes relaxed. "But _one_ more thing."

"What?"

"Lunch." He was subtle with his grin. "Instead of _jello_ for pudding, I'd like _apples_ from now on."

June was silent, with nothing to say, but then her chest heaved and she coughed up a laugh, a tiny, breathless laugh, a silent giggle that was hidden behind a straightened mouth. And this time, as she left, she made a note to ask Dr. Arkham to serve the apples that _weren't_ rotten.


	6. Chapter 5: Silent Films

**Chapter 5: Silent Films**

 _Television._

 _Multicolour. Technicolour. Black and white. Colourless. Pixels waltzing. Voices mute. Static screens. Electric stars. Erotic dancing. Wordless comedy. Thoughtless drama. False reality. And the six o'clock news every night._

 _His favourite shows, eyes wide, with the volume off._

* * *

"Come in." Dr. Arkham sighed dismally from inside his office, and quietly nervous Juniper Stoltz stopped nibbling her nails and stepped inside, closing the tall mahogany door as gently as she could. She never liked coming into Dr. Arkham's office much, as the decoration was so intimidating that it honestly set the scene far too accurately for when she'd meet the wrinkly old douchebag himself. It was very much like stereotypical villains' offices from the movies: blood red carpets, mahogany furniture that was more black than brown, and abstractly shaped ornaments that lined the bookshelves behind his desks; no light ever came in through the windows as the blinds he had fitted for them were never open. She hoped that after she'd finally got him to assign her to Joker's case, she would never be here again, yet here she was.

As June approached the chair opposite his desk, she caught a glimpse of him quickly putting away a whisky bottle and hiding the glass in his drawer, but he cleared his throat to act as if nothing had happened. Folding his hands together, he didn't even try to smile as he saw the girl walk through his door. The fact that she had the _gall_ to come into his office with her hair frayed with reckless abandon like that was insulting- hadn't the girl any sense of professionalism? 'Natural' hair he'd heard her call it- but damn him if he knew what she meant by it. She'd probably never even brushed it.

For the first time in a while, he decidedly commented on it, "Miss, um... Miss Stoltz, it seems you have yet to fix your hair."

Self consciously, she raised her hands to it and patted her curls gently. "What do you mean? What's wrong with it?"

"Hair like... _that_ is not acceptable for a workplace like this."

She frowned. "Hair like what?"

"Hair like... like..." He struggled to find a subtle way to say it- big, disheveled, frizzy- and instead made a wild gesture with his hands around his head as if to mimic its shape. "Like this."

"Sir, it's... it's my natural hair."

"Indeed." He raised an unamused brow and rolled his eyes, completely conscious of the fact that she could see it. _Asshole_.

After a moment of thought, she finally found her voice again. "Dr. Arkham, I don't want to come off as rude or... or unprofessional, and I apologise."

"Just..." He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Just tie it up."

June didn't reply, but looked at him to let him know that she'd listened. A please would've been nice, of course, but she didn't really expect that of him. Eventually, June sat down in the chair and sighed dejectedly, letting go of her hair as she stopped fussing with it. This wasn't the first time he'd ridiculed her for it, and it wouldn't be the last, she knew that for certain. There wasn't even technically any rules for staff on how to present themselves besides wearing the uniform, making sure makeup and other products are sanitary, and no unnaturally coloured hair, so it wasn't even like she was breaking any rules. She liked her hair and was proud of it. In fact, it looked just like Mama's did when she was her age.

Crossing her legs one over the other, she continued with what she wanted to say. "Anyway, I came here because I've got a request."

He snorted, "A request?"

"It's about J-" She cleared her throat and immediately corrected herself. "Patient 4479."

Dr. Arkham resisted a smirk. "A request from patient 4479? How charming. Room service, is it?" He cruelly joked, one that he laughed at but she didn't. She just kept her head held high and dug her nails into her knees to try and relax herself. It was unbelievable how much this man could infuriate her. "I've already spoken to the guards about that television over the weekend. Patient 4479 should be granted the opportunity today, anything to keep the bastard under wraps- so what _else_ does it want, Miss Stoltz? A puppy? Aren't you bait enough?" This time he really laughed, a villainous cackle that shook June to her very core. And the fact that he called the Joker an _it_...

"It's about his treatment." She said slowly, and his smile dropped. It was as if he was genuinely surprised at the fact that she was trying. "I know I've already asked about the TV and I'm very grateful that you allowed him at least that, but this is something that I've discussed with the patient and surprisingly, he agreed to."

"And that is?"

"Art therapy."

He didn't say a word until he looked up from the desk and at the girl sat in front of him, brown eyes awaiting a response. He would laugh, if it was funny. But the joke here wasn't funny, just plain ridiculous: the girl wanted the cuckoo clown to paint pictures in the name of 'progress'.

And so he asked, "You... want it to... _paint_?"

"Yes." She nodded.

"And you think it'll help it?"

"Yes."

"As a part of its treatment?"

" _His_ treatment, yes."

Dr. Arkham blinked. Oh God, she was _serious_.

"Miss Stoltz, things like this require time and money, both things that are very, very precious. You think that getting a homicidal maniac to paint- even _hold_ a paintbrush is a good idea?"

Her posture straightened as she quipped, "I've had a discussion with him. He's... agreed to be calm and cooperative towards his treatment." Of course, she couldn't mention the deal the two had made, the TV in exchange for cooperation- it'd most likely get her fired. "I've told him to give art therapy a try. If he likes it, then I've suggested he have one art session per week and if you want, I'll sit in on those sessions so nobody else has to sacrifice their time to do it. I genuinely think it's a good idea, Dr. Arkham. It's worth a try, at least."

"A try?"

"Yes."

He took the time to think, bony fingers reaching up to scratch his chin. Why was it, every time that this girl came to his office, begging like a dog, he was always faced with a stupidly damnable decision that was most likely for complete naught? Was there even point in trying anymore? Arguing with her, was there any meaning to it? Surely, the clown... it... it would kill her, wouldn't it...? _The perfect crime._

Dr. Arkham defeatedly tossed his hands into the air and shook his head, sighing. "Alright, alright. It can... _he_ can have the art therapy."

Relieved, June smiled, shoulders dropping as she relaxed for what felt like the first time in days. "Thank you, sir, thank you. You really don't know how much this mea-"

"I'll schedule a session for tomorrow." He was trying to rush her out as he stood, glaring her down. "You best deliver on your promises, Miss Stoltz." His voice was tight, as if he were about to suffocate on his own threat, and June found herself feeling awfully belittled, but she didn't let it get to her. If she did that, she'd lose.

Her mouth turned dry as she swallowed."I-I, um, I will, I will." She slowly rose to her feet and tried to think if there was any other way she could get on his good side, but the way that he pointed at the door seemed to say otherwise. She faked another smile as she turned towards the door, before saying once more, "Thank you, Dr. Arkham."

"Is there anything else you want, now?" He sighed. "Another request from the clown?"

June nibbled her lip and tried to be as polite as possible while she smiled, "Yes, actually."

His eyes flared. "What?"

"Apples that aren't rotten."

With a hearty nod and a shy slip through the door, June left Dr. Arkham stunned as she left, finally letting go of the breath she didn't even realise she was holding, hands pressed over her chest as it shook with apprehension and the sudden relief that it was over. See, she did like to think that at times she was fearless and stubborn, she stood her ground with the greatest bravery and never let go of whatever she was determined to hold onto; but there were certain things that opposed her, like Dr. Arkham, who made her feel so tiny and insignificant to the point where she believed that she was worth nothing. There weren't many things that scared June, and neither did Dr. Arkham, but she wasn't stupid in knowing that he held all the cards in the deck. One wrong move and she'd be out of a job she'd sacrificed too much to get.

Self-consciously, she twirled her fingers in the ends of her hair, pulling frizzed curls back to look at them, as if stretching them would straighten them out. Was it really as bad as he said it was?

She shook her head to herself and in habit, straightened out her clothes. No. He was wrong.

After mustering up to courage to finally leave, June turned the corner and made her way to the interviewing room for her session with the Joker. The one thing that did scare her, however, was not the Joker himself- but how she wasn't afraid of him. And it wasn't because he was human, a patient, or just a man, but he was her hobby, her muse, a ripe mind to rifle through and pluck. A walking library of unparalleled knowledge.

Only when she got to the interviewing room, the guard outside- _Just Kenny!_ \- caught her approaching the door, and then crossed his arms and shook his head at her like he was signalling her to leave.

June's expression folded confusedly as she asked calmly, "What's the matter? Can't I go in?"

"'Fraid not, Doctor." Just Kenny's head still shook slowly.

"I've got a patient interview this morning." She explained, eyes shifting around nervously. She felt like she was being set up.

Just Kenny's head still shook like he was a bobblehead toy. "He ain't in his cell."

June froze up in shock and eyes narrowed, she stepped closer to him. "W-what?"

Just Kenny suddenly began spluttering when he saw her worry. "Oh, uh, I, uh, I mean- he hasn't escaped, God, no," And June sighed in relief. "What I mean is, he ain't _here_."

She still awkwardly glanced at him, "Well... where is he then?"

"Last I heard, the rec room."

"The rec room?" She asked (mainly herself) but then remembered that he wanted that damn television, didn't he? As she thought about it, her brows raised, impressed how Dr. Arkham actually managed to supply her patient with what he needed as soon as possible. "Could you possibly show me where it is? I've never been there before."

He didn't look surprised as he checked his watch, looked at her, and then nodded, motioning her to follow him while he trudged along the corridors- as if escorting her was a chore. It didn't take that long, in fact, it was closer than she thought, and they stopped down a white corridor that lead to a set of double-doors fitted with barred windows so she could see inside. Stood outside was a guard with a clipboard, and as June went to peak through the windows, he cleared his throat loudly.

"You here to see a patient?" He grunted, blue eyes piercing her.

June nodded. "Yeah, um, patient 4479."

His brows furrowed closely to his eyes. "Who?"

"U-um..." Her stomach tightened and she fumbled with the straps on her bag, her patient's name caught just in her throat, just seconds away from leaving her lips. She hated saying it, because each time she did, she got a funny look. "The, um, the Joker."

He laughed, fake and half-assed."Nice joke, sister, real sweet. Now c'mon, I ain't paid to be listening to your jokes. Who you here to see?"

So again, she repeated, "The Joker."

The two were quiet as he looked her slight form up and down, judging her completely. "You... you ain't kidding, are you?"

Impatiently sighing, she shook her head.

"Ain't you a little young to be-"

"Maybe I am. Can I go in, please?"

He scoffed as he looked down at the list on the clipboard. "A'right, a'right, sheesh." He checked off a box and asked, "Name?"

"Dr. Stoltz."

As he wrote down the name, he smirked. "So's the story true?"

"What story?" She asked.

"That you and Colter are... y'know..." Like an immature boy, he made a circle with one hand and stuck his finger through it.

June groaned in disgust, "Oh my- God, no. _No_. Jesus Christ, is he really telling people that?" She demanded, suddenly feeling sick.

He shrugged, still smirking and _God_ , she'd slap it off of his goddamn face if she could. "Just rumours."

She rolled her eyes and turned away from him, not even wanting to give him the time of day as he unlocked the door for her and held it open, her closed form stepping inside as if him touching her would hurt her. _Repulsive_ , she thought to herself as he left.

Brown eyes flitting over the room laid out before her, she felt like she'd stepped into a world she shouldn't be in. The truth was, she'd never been in the recreational room before, as she never had to be. The other patients she'd had before the Joker were very calm, usually rather mundane people, and thus didn't have to be bribed with activities in the rec room as a reward for good behaviour, they just took their meds and went to sleep, lived simply and calm until they were deemed sane enough to go home or to be transferred to Blackgate. Somehow, she'd imagined the rec room to be a lot worse than it actually seemed to be.

Wide windows against the grey walls let in all the light Gotham had to offer, rain hammering down on the glass that served as white noise to occupy the dozen or so inmates in there who all remained quietly chattering among themselves- one of them, _to_ themselves- as they entertained themselves with the different activities that were on offer to them. Two inmates she recognised- Edward Nigma and Thomas Elliot- were sat in total silence whilst playing chess, Edward consciously eyeing the bandaged man in paranoia that he was cheating, hand scratching his chin obsessively. In the far right of the room, a man she knew as Arnold Whesker (or was it the Ventriloquist? The aliases confused her) was sat with a shorter man who wore an old and beaten hat, reading a book on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland while the former made do with a torn sock puppet on his arm. She spotted Jonathan Crane, an old acquaintance of hers in the hospital, now turned patient, scribbling on a piece of paper whilst chewing the end of his pencil, and only for a moment was she curious of what he was writing. It was so sad to see someone so bright and intelligent be reduced to something less than a man.

As June spied around the room at the other patients she didn't recognise, she noticed a torn and yellowed sofa in the left of the room sat before an old fat television set fitted to the wall, boxed in a cage so that it couldn't be tampered with by patients. And sat on the sofa, hunched forward with his back to her, was none other than the exact man- _patient_ \- she was looking for.

 _Joker_ , she mouthed the name to herself, as if the name brought a peculiar kind of comfort and familiarity to her worried and tired mind. The numbers 4479 had already become an old memory and she wondered, how could she let herself get this sick and wrapped up?

For a few minutes, she cautiously watched him from a distance as she stepped closer, seeing how he sat in the middle of the sofa with his legs spread, elbows leaning forward on his knees as he gazed up at the TV like it was the entrance to heaven, mouth agape and eyes wide. The colours of the TV flashed in his eyes like fireworks, and she knew that wherever he was, in his head, his mind, was not physically in the real world anymore. She felt that what she was doing was strangely voyeuristic- biting the corner of her lip- gaining absolute pleasure just from watching the most innocent of acts take place, acts that to him, was complete and total indulgence. It was private. His _thing_ , to say. Her stomach then spontaneously knotted up for a second and she could almost feel her knees give into the feeling of reverence, feeling something akin to jealousy and pining at the way he was looking at the screen, like it was the only idol of worship he believed in, his nihilistic beliefs gone, fluttering into the wind. She'd never seen him at so much peace before. So calm. Vaguely human.

Carefully approaching him, she made sure her heels didn't click too loud as to not break his concentration, nearing the sofa until she was close enough to sit down on the very end to his left, giving him the space he needed. She descended ever so slowly, placing her bag down next to her feet and crossing her legs one over the other, fingers entwined with her own as she simply watched, waited, not saying a single word to him. He was watching some movie she'd never seen before- a romance, to her utmost surprise- set in Paris, vibrant tones of sunset pinks and vivd blues flashing from the screen and onto his painted face, the pasted white turning a hue of orange, mint, cream, yellow. Everything was set out perfectly, enough to entrance and keep him quiet, only the sound wasn't on. Perhaps it was a silent film, she thought, until she saw the actors' mouths move and no sounds coming out. In the corner of the screen she saw the tiny little mute symbol.

She opened her mouth as if to say something, but then the Joker spoke over her, voice smooth and even dreamy. He didn't look at her, only watched the TV, tongue dragging across his red lips and the insides of his scars. "Hi, _Ju_ nie." His black eyes were glued to the screen, mesmerised.

"Hi, Joker." She pushed forward an unnecessarily high-pitched tone to give the illusion of a 'good morning' and not that she'd already been pissed off twice today. He didn't answer her and she exhaled contently, puckering her lips as she awkwardly waited for something to happen. Maybe he'd stop watching when the commercial breaks came on- and then five minutes later, he didn't. Apparently he had no qualms in quietly watching an advertised toothbrush demonstration or a campaign to support LexCorp. He just sat there as if the world around him didn't exist.

After waiting long enough, June cleared her throat, thumbs pressed together shyly. "Um... are you... okay?"

"I'm _fine_ ," was all he said, words mumbled so they strung together in one breath.

Eventually, the movie came back on, and after only two minutes of watching the characters talk with no sound, she felt like she was going crazy. How was he not currently itching and yelling for the guards to turn it up? Neck craning around, she started to look for a remote or any kind of indication that would help her find it, but saw nothing. "Why isn't the volume on?" She finally asked her patient, looking at him with curiosity that even he could see from the corner of his eye.

"The guards. They, uh, turned it _off_."

"Oh." _Unbelievable_. Even when he got the TV, they still wouldn't let him enjoy it. Getting up to stand, she gripped the arm of the sofa, fingers digging into the tattered cloth, and the Joker could feel her little fist squash the space between them. "Let me ask for the remote so-"

Before she even got to her feet, he thoughtlessly pressed a hand to her right knee and pushed her back down, the sudden pressure eliciting an inward gasp from her parted lips- his bare hand, long fingers hooking under her knee cap, the only thing separating his palm and her naked leg being the thin nylon tights that she wore, not even thick enough to withstand a tear whenever she caught her nail while pulling them up. Her eyes closed as she fell back down, lashes against her freckled cheeks, everything in slow and muted motion, just like the television set. He'd never seen anything so alive and in such a fantasy light- eyes flitting back to the TV as he still pushed her down, the actress on screen whipping her golden hair, walking down the streets of Paris, and his Junie, lithe and blurry, dark curls falling like feathers around her shoulders as she finally hit the seat of the sofa with a whispering sigh. What took two seconds to happen in reality lasted an hour in their heads.

And as soon as her dark eyes opened, he let go, warmth gone, the prospect of him even touching her a mere memory, a fever dream, something that might've happened, but might not've. Yet when June was sat there, she looked at him with glassy eyes, confused, curious, distant and yet the closest she'd ever felt to someone she shouldn't. He wasn't supposed to touch her. Both of them knew that. But when June would usually get up and leave immediately to tell someone, or say something to him about it, she didn't, and she had no idea whether it was out of the fear she knew she didn't feel or... or...

Joker spoke, again, slowly and quietly, gaze trapping hers. "I _asked_ them to turn it off."

June's mouth parted into a tiny 'o' shape as she said that single syllable, the one noise caught in the bottom of her throat like it was trying to strangle her. She couldn't even conjure up a question as to why he'd want the volume off, and as she tried to ignore and pretend like his hand had never been near her, she tried making her question the only thing on her mind. _Professional_ , she reminded herself forcefully. _Professional. Professional. Professional._ Even when the volume on that damned TV set was off she still couldn't hear herself think- his eyes were there, looking at her. Like the eyes of Medusa.

"I _asked_ them to turn the volume _off_ ," The Joker said, settling back into the sofa as he propped his right leg over his left, holding his ankle as he tried to wonder why the hell she wasn't talking. His tongue prodded around the insides of his scars for a moment before he said, "Th _e_ , uh, the _sounds..._ irrita _te_ me. S'like static _noise_."

He had a fair point, but June still queried, "But you can't hear what they're saying." She momentarily watched the clip that played on screen: the blonde and her French love interest strolling down a street in twilight. It was a little weird that he was watching romance, but the asylum wouldn't let him watch action or horror for obvious reasons.

Joker shrugged, turning his head to watch the movie now that she was. "You shouldn't _have_ to know what they're saying. _Then_ the movie is whatever you _want_ it to be." He said. The blonde on screen was now crying, desperately clutching the arms of her lover. _Forbidden love_ , June dreamily thought. _A murderer_ , Joker liked to imagine. "Or... the, uh, _actors_ , without their lines, are _forced_ to act. _Geddit_?"

June hummed, nodding in interest. "Oh, I see. Like silent films?"

He broke out into a small, admittedly amused smile as he looked at her, somewhat comforted by the thought that she understood what he was saying. "Yeah," He said quietly. "Like _silent_ films."

When June turned to speak to him, he immediately looked away, but it happened so fast that she didn't even notice, never even knew that he was watching her in the first place. A fascinated smile graced her pursed lips. "So... you like silent films, huh?"

He wordlessly nodded, pretending to focus on the movie. The blonde held onto her French lover as if she were about to die, and they embraced as if it were their last day on earth. Her blue eyes didn't stop crying as he held a stern and pensive stare, pale hands curling around her back as he squeezed her tightly. Joker could tell by the engagement ring on the character's finger that she was already promised to someone else, and this was why they were so pathetically hanging onto each other. With a grimace, he glanced at Junie, who drinking in the same thing as he was, only she looked enamoured while he felt disgusted. Romance was weird.

Still watching the film, however, he added, "Bu- _t_ the, uh, the _colours_ , they an _noy_ me. I get a _headache_ watching modern TV. All the, uh... all the scenes _cut_ too fast and there's too many _flashy_ colours."

June drawled quietly, "Yeah, I remember you telling me over lunch that day. How you wanted a TV set... and... and..."

Joker took a peek at her again when her voice suddenly stopped. Her brown eyes were wide, much like her mouth, as she watched the lovers onscreen move closer and closer, barely kissing, lips brushing against one another's as the man whispered something in French, _je t'aime_. The clown looked down to Junie's hands, folded anxiously in her lap, and when the onscreen couple finally kissed, her fingers knotted together, thighs tightening as her knuckles turned white, squeezing, squeezing, ever squeezing. He didn't smile, not at all, but was gratified in a way, to see her understand where he was coming from with all this. It was almost perfect. There was no deeper meaning to why he liked silent film or only black and white television, nothing deeper than the fact that he liked to watch the colourless pictures move along the screen without any sounds distracting him. That was it. In fact, he'd stopped telling doctors about it after Dr. Young found out, where she'd relentlessly interrogate him about it in the stupid belief that his fondness for silent pictures somehow reflected the troubled past that he'd made up to trick her. At least Junie, although ridiculously empathetic and cruelly naïve, could just shut up and appreciate it without asking stupid questions.

Joker leant in close to scare her and whispered in a giggled tone, " _I_ , uh, still _do_ want that TV set for my _cell_ , by the way."

Swiftly turning to look at him with a tense yelp, June saw how he was laughing, harsh and mocking, which she initially took insult to but then felt herself crack a small smile of her own as she coyly chuckled, hiding her mouth behind her hand. Beyond all the numbers, the 4479, the doctors reports and the names of medicines assigned to him, June easily forgot that behind the face paint and the scars lived a human, just a person, and while that person was completely insane and totally sadistic, he was still just human. He liked things. Silent film. He liked silent film. Hiding behind the façade of professionalism she fought to uphold, she hadn't really taken much thought to how he lived, how his mind worked mundanely, as though he were just a machine with cogs turning in place of a brain, as if he were not even a living, breathing, functioning person who just... _was_. It was her weakness. She could be so strong and resilient at times, but the amount of sympathy and empathy she felt to those who were mistreated like she was... it was staggering. In her line of work, it was a flaw. But to June, she felt it made her human. And sometimes that was all it took to separate the man from the monster: his ability to feel.

After his laughs had simmered down into soft breaths of silence, June shook her head of those thoughts, instead reminding herself to talk about it in her audio diary later. Then a thought struck her, and she had to ask, "So, um... this is gonna sound stupid..."

Slightly smirking, Joker urged her to carry on, "What _is_ it?"

"What... what movies _do_ you like, then?" She was sheepish about the whole thing, dipping her head down and avoiding eye contact. She laughed nervously.

His brows raised at her question- out of all the medical things and psychological garbage she'd asked him before, this question simply struck him as the most interesting. It was normal. When had anyone ever asked him a _normal_ goddamn question?

"Uh..." He hummed in thought, unsure of how to really answer. "I, uh, I _don't_... really _have_ a favourite. I mean, uh, you got the _obvious_ early films, like Nosferatu." Joker said, June listening in wonder at the passion and knowledge that soaked his words, hands gesturing with each word. "Then Charlie _Chaplin_ came around and started doing _his_ sketches. They're, uh, _slap_ stick but still kinda funny," He said with a chuckle, tongue swiping his bottom lip as his eyes peered around the room in thought, trying to remember those tapes he'd stumbled upon before. Then he shrugged, looking down at her. "I guess I like any film that's _good_... even when you turn the _sound_ off, y'know?"

June nodded in complete understanding, shifting her body weight to the side as she payed attention to him. "Do you think they still sell silent films on DVD or VHS?"

" _No_ idea." He smacked his lips together. "Why d'ya _ask_?"

"If, um..." She played with her hands, looking down at them. "If you continue to behave, I suppose it wouldn't do any harm to... to try and ask Dr. Arkham to let you watch some. I swear, I've never seen you so relaxed in my life." A shrill giggle left her but as soon as it did, she slapped a hand to her mouth as though she tried to catch it and put it back. He watched her with such interest that it scared him. Not that he was scared of anything, but the idea was there. He didn't like that simply watching her move amused him. Distracting. And that was _never_ good.

"That's, uh, awfully _kind_ of you, Junie," He mumbled lowly, eyes fixated on her calmly smiling lips, pink and plump. "Odd how you're being _so_..." Digging around for the right word, he clicked his tongue. The sound made June's heart stop. "...so _thoughtful_ ," He concluded with a tilt of his head. "So _generous_. You doing this outta the _kind_ ness of your own _heart_ , doll?"

At a loss for words, she stuttered to find an answer. "I... I just think that treating you with respect is due."

" _Due_?" His dark eyes squinted with a laugh. "You _do_ realise that I _kill_ people, right? For _kicks_?"

"I meant respect as a human being."

"Who likes to _kill_ people. A lo- _t_." He purposely ticked his tongue to intimidate her, and indeed, she did inch back just a little.

"Is it bad that I don't like my patients being treated like animals?" She asked, staring at him stubbornly. "Hell, the only thing stopping this asylum from being a human zoo is the fact that guests can't go past the visiting area. That's it. They keep you in a cell, they tie you up-"

"Mm, I do _love_ being tied up." He joked, tongue pressed against the front of his teeth as he smiled.

"Joker, seriously," June frowned, sighing. "I feel... bad, alright? Not... I don't pity you, that's just sad. You don't deserve pity for what you've done, but this is a hospital, not a prison facility. I want to give you whatever makes you comfortable, but I can only do so much, okay?"

"If you cared so _much_ about my, uh, my _comfort_ , Junie, you'd think about dropping by my _cell_ on Saturday nights- _ah_." Joker's voice had dropped an octave as he eyes her, turning so that he could rest his arm over the back of the chair.

June swallowed hard- she knew he was just trying to make her uncomfortable- and she played with her hair as she tried to think of an answer. "I-I don't work Saturdays. You know this."

 _Interesting how she didn't say no._

" _Friday_ , then."

"I actually work while I'm here, you know."

"Lights _off_ at ten p.m. If I'm, uh, _correct_ , you finish your shift at _seven_ , don't you?"

She finally looked up at him. "How do you know that?"

He smiled darkly at her reaction. "That's when _Colter_ drops by my cell. He only ever walks down that corridor when _you're_ there, and leaves me _alone_ when you're around. But if he's in my _cell_ , well..." He arched a brow. "You've gone _home_."

It was hard for June to comprehend feeling simultaneously terrified and impressed by how he'd calculated that. She paused and looked around her- she'd nearly forgotten about the real world- and expected every pair of eyes to be looking back, but nobody cared. Not even the guard by the door. She turned to Joker and saw him waiting, tonguing the insides of his scars as his fingers drummed against the back of the chair, filling her mind with nothing but the perpetual sound of his fingers, _drum, drum, drum, drum_ -

"What does Colter do to you?" She fearfully whispered, neck bending forward.

He leaned closely towards her, whispering back. "You _know_ what." Then he lifted up the bottom of his orange shirt to reveal his stomach, mutilated with bruises and belt whips, and Junie's eyes widened in horror, hand unconsciously thrusting to grab hold of his wrist so that he pulled the shirt back down. The way her small fingers curled around his forearm, dark hairs locked under her palm, they met eyes, her fearful, his gleaming. She was panicked, he was having the time of his life. It burned to touch him. And too many boundaries were being crossed for June to want to start counting.

She peeled her hands off as if she were stuck to him. Her nervous tics kicked back in, the smoothing of the clothes, the adjusting of her hair. "I-I'll tell Dr. Arkham about it."

Joker shook his head with a sly smile. "No you _won't_."

"Excuse me?"

"I _know_ you won't. What'll he _do_ , Junie? Stop Col _ter_ with his bare _hands_? The old prick looks like he's made outta _straw_."

"Well, I can't just have the guards beating you whenever they feel like it."

"If you've got _such_ a _prob_ lem with it, why don't you take it to the big guy _himself_ , huh?"

"No!" She almost cried, then covered her mouth to muffle herself. Joker laughed at her reaction and she trembled, shaking her head. "I-I can't talk to Colter." God, even the thought of it terrified her.

"Why _not_?"

"Have you seen him? He's twice my size!"

Joker was tempted to laugh again, in spite- the poor precious doctor can't even handle the dumb brute with three braincells- but as he paused to look at her, her hands, how they gripped the hem of her skirt and how her chest suddenly began to heave, teeth nibbling her lip and her gaze distant, he realised that it wasn't just the case of her being too stupidly shy to confront Colter.

"You're _scared_ of him."

June's voice turned to silence as she blinked at him, speechless. She was in no place to deny it, but at the same time, she couldn't let her own patient know that she was scared of someone who walked past him every day. Hell, she couldn't let him know that she was more afraid of Colter than she was of the Joker.

But he asked again, this time leaning closer and lowering his voice to try and reason with the girl. Digging into her to find her fears. "You're _really_ scared of him, _aren't_ you?"

She swallowed hard and straightened her back to create some space between the two. "Don't- don't make it a thing. It's not a big deal. There's... history there that I'd rather not dwell upon."

"You're _teasing_ me, doll..." He sang huskily, donning a smirk that soon turned into a toothy grin. June could hear herself breathing, chest tight as he shuffled closer to her. "C'm _on_ ," He tempted, " _I_ hate the guy. _You_ hate the guy. We, uh, we have a lot in _common_."

"So?"

" _So_... let's talk about it." He'd flipped the session completely on its head, seeing if he could draw her in enough for her to stupidly trust him.

"It's not profess-"

"Neither is _Colt_ er _beating_ me in a jail cell. I thin _k_ we can at least even it _out_ here, Junie."

Moments after he said it, it was scary for June to think that she was actually considering the possibility of telling him. She almost let it slip, nearly said the words, _date gone wrong_ , forgotten who they both were for a second. Amongst the sound of rain hammering gently on the glass windows just beyond them, she almost felt calm enough to the point where maybe telling him won't be so bad. It was hardly a conscious decision, but then she woke up, shook herself from the thought, and her head rose, hooded eyes boring right back into his.

"Art therapy, Joker." Her mouth was still open as she uncomfortably breathed, raspy and hollow. "Do art therapy and I'll tell you."

He spoke the moment she finished, shaking his head, "No! _No,_ Junie, c' _mon_ , you can't- you can't just _bribe_ me with things and _expect_ me to com _ply-"_

"I'm your doctor," She croaked in a sad, nearly pained-sounding way. Her doe eyes were wide as her forehead creased upward, worry on her mind. "I'm not bribing you. I want to help you."

Junie's words were desperate, so much in fact that he knew she was being somewhat truthful. But just like him, she had an ulterior motive. Maybe she did want to help him. Maybe she was a good and honest doctor. But she also wanted to prove everyone wrong- Dr. Arkham, Colter, everyone who'd ever doubted her. She had her secrets, secrets that even he couldn't solve, but she was an open book. June didn't want to cure him for some selfless purpose or to serve a greater good, in fact, she was doing it for herself. If she could get the stamp of sanity printed on his medical records, then she could cure anybody. Everybody would fight to employ her, hell, she could even run Arkham. She just wanted to prove everybody wrong. Anything, she'd give, just to show them that she could do it. Her trust and complete utter faith was just out of his reach, and all he had to do was give her what she wanted. He was never one to play by the rules, but for Junie, he'd make an exception.

His shoulders fell, a falsely defeated sigh that she mistook for being true. And then a nod, a nod of genuine acceptance.

"Ok _ay_ ," Joker said, voice calm. "Al _ri_ ght."

"Art therapy?"

He nodded. " _Art_ therapy."

 _Je t'aime_ , said the French lover silently, finally letting the blonde girl go.


	7. Chapter 6: Triangles, in a Sensory Way

**Chapter 6: Triangles, in a Sensory Way**

"He likes silent film," Painfully smiling Juniper Stoltz said to her bedroom ceiling, audio diary next to her and recording every word. Atop her bedsheets in nothing but her underwear and a moth-bitten shirt, she laid there with her arms behind her head, legs crossed over each other as every once in a while, she lifted them to wriggle her toes to avoid pins and needles. The curtains danced slowly as the soft midnight breeze whispered through the opened crack in her window, rain sneaking in so the succulent plants lining her windowsill could get some water. Lights off, the most peaceful place in the world when accompanied with total and complete solitude.

It was the same night after her 'session' with Joker in the rec room, and somehow, all she could think about was the blurred pixels she watched with him on the screen and dwell upon how vividly she could remember his eyes, widely watching, infinitely empty, and she clutched to her stomach at the thought that there was still tomorrow, another day, more time spent with trying to decipher the murderer she used to watch on live TV a year ago. She'd spent a while thinking over whether enjoying her sessions with him was immoral or not, and then tried to dig deeper as to the reason why exactly she loved them so much. He was brash, thoughtless, irrational and dangerous, but he was also so interesting that he was like a walking, talking book of constantly flowing knowledge, pages full of things she'd never seen before and each chapter was like discovering another secret that always lead to something else. And he was so animated. So vivid. A streak of neon paint that cast itself upon the dreary asylum walls.

June drew endless circles over the knee he'd touched that same day, sparking electricity from her skin. "He likes... moving pictures, I guess. Doesn't like the colours all that much... hates the sound..." She sighed calmly as her bronze irises eyed the cracks in the ceiling, teeth brushing tongue. Her voice was nearly a whisper, as if her thoughts should've been a secret- which they were. "It's amazing how human he is. I dunno, I guess that after all the years of treating patients and having it hammered into you that being mentally ill somehow devalues you as a person... it's all garbage. It's bullshit. Even if he is incurable... I don't care." The words lingered in her mind long after she'd said them, silence accompanied by the soft breeze of 12:31 a.m. The only one listening being her handy little audio diary.

 _Incurable_. It actually hit her: sometimes illnesses just couldn't be cured, no matter how much you tried. It was quite scary to think of it that way, but she knew how it felt. It was like mourning the loss of a loved one. You never really stopped- they'd always be dead, nothing would ever change that- but to get over it, you couldn't fix the person who'd passed, you had to fix yourself. Of course, it was all easier said than done, but pills wouldn't fix the Joker. Stuffing him up with Prozac or Xanax wouldn't stop him from killing people, it'd distract him for an hour before he jumped back onto that train of thought he was catching. And besides, people with depression weren't cured overnight, it was a process; the ones with bipolar disorder were sometimes stuck with it forever, but there was a difference between enduring it and living with it. To suffer in complete silence and let it devour you whole, or learn to make it a part of you, and not let it get in your way. But him... she couldn't pin any illness to him. The Joker would most likely always be... the Joker.

"His eyes are open to the most obscure and minuscule things, but closed to the obvious wrongs he's doing. God... not looking into his memories is the hardest thing I've ever done," She laughed, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "I love mysteries, but... I've been waiting on this case for a year, y'know? I suppose it's easy to forget that there's rules in the moment," She pondered, chewing her knuckle softly. "I just wanna know why he does the things he does. I like to figure out how people work. Watching them... do things. In the present, they're alive. Real. Sometimes you shouldn't define people by their past, y'know, their memories, but when they're so easy to just look into and find... it's hard not to. Memories are like... are like goldmines, but... that's all they are." Her hand dropped back down to her stomach, butterflies fluttering. "Memories."

And even long after she closed the diary entry with a muttered 'goodnight' and switched off the audio diary, she held it atop her tummy, hands fumbling to grasp something that could give her even the slightest comfort in such a troubled and confused time, mind muddled with the battling thoughts of retaining dignity and indulging herself in exactly what she wanted. The world around her was as pitch black as his eyes when she shut her own, and through a dreamless slumber she slept, the only nightmare she endured was the waking thought of his lips, blood red and wet, feigning smiles, before she was out like a light.

* * *

"Morning, June." Chirped Mara, stepping into the doctor's office with the latest issue of the Gotham Times in one hand and a coffee in the other, a giddy smile on her face. "June, you wouldn't guess who just spoke to me as I came here. Colter! Dressed in that tight shirt I love, too. God, he's so-" She stumbled upon her own words as she looked at the younger doctor, daydreaming to the point where it looked like she was simply sleeping with her eyes open. "June?"

But starstruck Juniper Stoltz was in a world of her own, pen in hand, other end in mouth, tongue secretively circling the end as her eyes gazed off into the distance, feeling as content as one could on a Tuesday morning in March. She'd woken up in such a peaceful mood, felt such relief at being able to come to work and just sit down and think, reminiscing about that TV set as if it were a nostalgic memory of years past, and she didn't even notice the secretary girl walk into her office, hardly even realising she was there. _Je t'aime, je t'aime_...

"June?" Mara squinted her eyes crossly and slapped down the newspaper she was holding on the desk in front of June, startling her enough to yelp and accidentally toss her pen to the floor. "June!"

"Ah! What?" She spluttered, fumbling for the audio diary that she'd left mindlessly on the desk, shoving it into her handbag by her feet.

The grey-eyed woman barely took any notice, only rolled her eyes with a sigh. "I said, Colter spoke to me down the hall."

Uninterested, June faked mutual happiness. "Really?"

"He sure did!" Mara sang, cheeks turning pink as she giggled. "I mean, he asked me where you were, but it doesn't matter- he called me by my _name_. He knows who I am!"

"Oh. Why, uh, why did he wanna see me?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. Mentioned something about him turning up to your apartment drunk, I think. Do you know what he meant?"

Impulsively lying, June shook her head. "No. Um. Did you, um, did you tell him where I am?"

"June, I was so caught up in the moment that I couldn't even get my words out. Jesus, I must've looked so stupid but his- his- his muscles and his eyes, they're-"

 _Gross_.

"-just so gorgeous!"

"Is that really all you came to tell me?" June asked, lips curled slightly in apathy as she tilted her head to the side. She was happy that Mara could find some good in Colter- whatever or wherever that good was, she didn't know- but she'd never really spoken to him before. She had no idea of the things he was capable of. Looks are deceiving, and hell, there was a time during the very start of her internship that even June thought he was handsome, but it was nothing compared to how he'd embarrassed and degraded her in the past. Looks meant absolutely nothing when he was the biggest jerk on the planet.

Mara took a sip of her coffee and puckered her lips in thought, before she hummed in realisation. "No, actually, I just received a memo from Dr. Arkham to pass onto you."

June's stomach sank and a sickening feeling crawled up her throat- oh God, this was it, she was fired, the Joker had done something, she'd done something-

"He wanted me to tell you that, um... the... Joker..." She grimaced as the name left her mouth, "He's in the rec room today, it's been cleared out so it's just him and a few guards. He's been assigned to that art therapy thing you suggested."

Brows raised, she smiled in astonishment. "Today?"

"Yeah."

"Christ, that was quick."

"Looks like Dr. Arkham just wants to get this thing over with." June smiled at Mara's words but the joy was short lived as the pale girl stared the doctor down. "Y'know, June... it won't last long."

She rose to her feet and at hearing what the other girl had just said, stiffly paused. "What do you mean?"

"This little doctor thing you got going with that psycho." She took another sip of her coffee and shook her head with a spiteful laugh. "They never last. The longest one was with Dr. Young and that was barely even four months. It took him three weeks to start beating on Hugo Strange."

"Well... I'm still here. And anyway, he's not as simple as that. He's- he's aware of things and he's intelligent and-"

"Are you hearing yourself right now?"

"What?"

"June, you sound like you... you _know_ the freak. Like you actually like him. You think you're special?"

"I think I'm capable." June defensively argued.

"June, you're..." Mara sighed, tapping her heel. "You're young and... y'know..." In an inhuman way, she vaguely gestured towards June, trying to explain with her hand what she was too ashamed to say with her own words.

It took a moment before it sank in, and June's eyes widened wildly when she realised the connotation behind what Mara was trying to say. " _Excuse_ me?"

"N-not in that way, I just mean, like, well, y'know..." She stuttered desperately, waving her hand around like a fool.

"What?" June crossed her arms. "What is it? What're you trying to say?"

"Just that, well... you're from, like, a different background than most people who work here. L-like Cash and..." There was a disgustingly uncomfortable pause as Mara's face flushed a deep red- _damn right she should be embarrassed_. But her mouth was like a running faucet of absolute idiocy, she couldn't stop: "And I mean, with your dad being, um..."

"Hey, don't you _dare_ say shit about him," June snapped, teeth grit frustratedly as Mara shrank back, ashamed. "He's not a part of my family, so don't you say _shit_. Like you have the right." Her words dripped with sourness and seething anger, and the longer she stared at Mara, the more her pale hand trembled around the coffee cup she was hopelessly grasping onto, as if silence could save her. June sighed heavily, head hung low as she ignored the woman in front of her. "Just... just get out of my office," She whispered.

Mara did exactly that, scrambling to pick the newspaper back up and left without even apologising or saying another word.

When the door shut, June threw her leg back and frustratedly kicked the side of her desk, gritting her teeth before instantly regretting it as she hurt her toe- "Oh, shit, oh, shit, ow, ow, ow, ow."

After calming down and composing herself in a presentable manner, she grabbed her bag and left. Trying to memorise the pattern of getting to the rec room was a tricky feat when all she could think about was Mara and her stupidly thoughtless words, and how she'd thought about her father for the first time in months, the faceless bastard returning to torment her mind once again. June hadn't even remembered he'd existed at all since her Mama... since...

Another thought distracted her as she rounded the corner, those familiar double doors in sight once again. Instead of the weirdo guard that was stood outside the day before, Aaron Cash stood in his place, greeting June warmly as she approached.

"Morning, doc. Here to see your patient?"

Relieved at the sight of his familiar face, she nodded with a returned smile, stopping briefly so he could sign in her details on his clipboard.

"Didn't know you were treating the clown." He commented, raising a stare at her as she held her breath, waiting for the repeated lecture. Cash dotted down the time on his clipboard- how fast he'd become fluent with his left hand- and pursed his lips with a nonchalant shrug. "Oh, well. Hard work, but I'm sure you manage, right doc?"

She puffed a small laugh of relief as she relaxed, nodding at his statement. He didn't ask why she was being so quiet, like most people did, just let her get on with what she was doing. Like a normal person.

"Go right on in, doc. There's a guard in there who's been watching him to wait until you arrived."

"Oh..." She stopped as she was about to walk in, turning on her heel. "Would it, um... would it be a problem for him to leave? Jok- uh, patient 4479 tends to be a lot calmer and open when they're not around," She said with a nervous laugh, his brow arched pensively. "I think he sees them as competition or something. Is it a... guy thing?" Lip bit, she whispered giggly.

 _At least he laughed_ , she thought, and he nodded, "Oh, I get it, doc. Sure, I'll get him out, just wait by here a sec."

Patiently waiting, Cash slipped into the rec room and she listened to his low voice converse with the other guard, as well as discreetly apologising to her patient by telling him to just continue with his painting, and it only took about two minutes for the process to be over with, Cash and the other guard stepping back out. They both had quite a surprised look on their faces, sure that they'd both turned paler since she'd last seen them, and Cash wordlessly held the door open for her. Too afraid to ask why they were acting so strange, June went inside. "My God," she heard him say as the door closed. "What kind of bastard is allowed to do paint like that?"

She had no idea what he even meant, and as she put on a smile she crossed to the centre of the room and saw Joker, figure hidden behind the easel but his legs still sticking out from either side, orange trousers ridden up so his ankles were clearly seen. Just beyond the canvas he sat behind was the emptied chessboard, and atop of it was (in a typical fashion) a vase of flowers; fake plastic lilies all bunched together in a tall teal vase and situated in such a way that the morning sunlight shone through the cloth-woven petals, turning the white threads into transparent gold. She was sure that he wouldn't be very amused by the tranquil object he got to copy, but hey, at least Dr. Arkham actually put in some effort for her to get these sessions.

"Good morning, Joker," June grinned, pulling up a chair so she could sit to his left. "How's art therapy go- oh my God."

The chair slipped from her grasp, metal legs hitting the floor with a clang and her handbag joined suit, unknowing of the contents that had rolled out of it. Eyes wide and mouth agape, June looked at the canvas before her, and paralysed she stood, mouth devoid of words. Head devoid of thoughts.

Every brush stroke of oil paint was a sentient being of its own- they protruded out just slightly from the canvas, making it real, free, unrestrained from its paper bindings. White petals bleeding red on the ends, blue-grey background, same teal vase, only messy, streaky, and the sunlight shone through every faux petal like it were molten gold. It was real, the painting before her was real, but was done in such a messy way, colours blended together, that it was almost grotesque, the motions of every swipe seemingly done with a violent strip back of his hand- what she was looking at was so much more than an art piece, it was a physical embodiment of his state of mind, how he saw the most peaceful objects as distorted, ruined, part of the blurred geometrical world he lived in. It was fantastic. Ethereal. His own hands- his _hands_! The same hands that had surely murdered a hundred men- had created something far more than plain art, it was something transcendent. And for a moment she doubted herself, unsure if what she saw was real.

"Oh my God," June whispered, stumbling back to sit in the chair. "You- you-"

Joker sat back in his chair with a heavy sigh, setting down his paintbrush beneath the canvas and swiped the back of his hand across his forehead, smearing white paint all down his arm. His fingers, covered with flecks of paint- blue, yellow, green, red- twitched and trembled slightly, and he looked at his palms as if he'd never seen them before. Shaking, exhausted. He must've been painting for hours.

June glanced at the canvas and then back to him as she resisted the urge to put her hand on his shoulder to grab his attention, and said in a breathless laugh, "Joker, you did this?"

He nodded, tongue obnoxiously lapping at his lips as he wiped his hands messily in his shirt. He was so nonchalant about the whole thing- how did he not realise that what he'd made was literal art good enough to be in a gallery?

"It's amazing," She mused, dipping her head so she could catch his gaze. Little did she know, it had been on her since the moment she walked in- was always on her- she just didn't get it. He was wondering whether painting a picture of her with her insides in her mouth would be a good idea. Oh, he could envision it now: oil painting, so that the gore would come to life and the strokes would help to shape the organs better; her dark skin painted in deep shades of blue, eyes completely white, holding her own heart in one hand and a lung in the other, and then her mouth, spilling with her own intestines, drowned red in blood, harsh, vivid red, so much so that it'd be orange. Her hair... her hair he'd keep the same. Just so that hint of Junie was still there underneath all the blood and guts. Yeah... maybe he'd keep that project private...

"Have you always been able to paint like that?" She asked anxiously, brown eyes gleaming as she smiled.

 _Would you believe beginner's luck, Junie?_

Glancing at her from the corner of his eye, he tried to avoid the question and as he spotted her emptied bag on the floor, realised he was saved of the trouble. The black leather bag was open and out spilled various contents: a small planner diary, a tube of mascara, lipgloss, a pocket mirror and a film photograph of a younger Junie and a woman he guessed to be her mother. He couldn't resist a smile from coming to his lips as he bent down to pick it up, blue paint smearing the bottom corner of it.

"Hey, what's _this_?" He asked curiously, turning the polaroid around so he could see it better. Definitely a _much_ younger Junie- she had to be fifteen or sixteen, look at all those freckles- stood next to her mother with their arms slung around each other, the Empire State Building in the background. She definitely looked very similar to her mother, with the same hair, dark eyes and tawny brown complexion, and the two looked much more like sisters than mother and child.

"Hey, give it back!" June cried as she snatched the photo from him, holding it close to her chest. Joker chuckled calmly, turning around to look at her.

"C' _mon_ , Junie, I was only having a _little_ look." He suddenly saw how defensive she got and sighed- _great, now I've upset the girl_. "Who, uh, who _is_ that anyway? Your _ma_?"

She silently nodded.

He nodded back in response, pretending to be interested. "She, uh, I mean, _you_. You look a _lot_ like her."

"Yeah." Junie mumbled quietly.

"How _old_ were you there?"

"Fifteen."

" _Ah_." He sucked his front teeth as she slowly peeled back her fingers to look at the photo herself. Her index finger grazed the streak of blue he'd printed onto it and surprisingly, didn't say a word about it. "So, uh, New _York_ , huh?"

"Can you stop being so awkward about it, please?" She snapped, making him smile in amusement. She placed the photo photo back in her bag, along with the rest of her belongings that had spilled out. He watched her dainty fingers firmly hold the pocket mirror as she slid it back into the slot inside her bag. Fingers he _knew_ were easy to break. "These sessions are about you, not me." She said.

Joker rolled his eyes and sank back in his seat. _Back to square one._

June looked at him, eyes softening as her posture slackened, a heavy sigh leaving her. Zipping up the bag, she held it on her lap and when Joker looked down to his strained hands, she frowned. "Look, I'm... sorry I snapped at you like that." As the words left her, he peeked up at her, face emotionless, but surprised. "I haven't had the best morning. There's been... a lot on my mind."

Joker bit back a huge smirk and repositioned himself in his chair, sitting on it backwards so his arms rested across the back of it. Legs jutting out at the sides, his toes curled in anticipation. He looked so comical. "Like _what_?" He asked her. He was already waiting for the ' _it's not professional_ ' schtick she liked to pull out when she felt guilty.

Junie huffed and placed her bag on the floor. "I dunno. Stupid people."

"Doll, I'm sur _round_ ed by them every _day_." He smiled, resting his cheek against his knuckle, elbow propped up on the chair's back. Junie's eyes looked up and he caught what looked like a smile, just a little one, enough to see that she was on her way to giving in.

"Yeah, well..." She shook her head with a soft laugh, although she wasn't smiling. "I suppose you've dealt with Colter before. You know how much of an assh- um, idiot he is."

"You can _swear_ , Junie. I don't con _demn_ profanity."

"If it's alright with you, I don't feel like I should."

"Whatever you _say_ , doc."

She felt a pained twinge in her chest. The word 'doc' pierced her harshly, put her in her place, reminded her of where she was right now. And yet somehow, she felt nothing. The guilt that would always be bugging her if she so much as smiled at him, she couldn't feel it. Like her conscience had taken a vacation or something and all she was left with was her emotions and running mouth.

Junie looked awfully agitated. Hand raised to her mouth, she bit on her fingernails and gazed off into the distance, past him, past the painting, past the asylum walls. The Joker bit the insides of his scars. She was so vulnerable. So, _so_ vulnerable. There was nothing sweeter than sitting before your prey knowing that they wouldn't expect that even for a second you'd jump and lash out at their throat, and that's exactly where the Joker was right now: in his little fantasy world of having Junie, dead, on the floor before him. The only reason he hadn't done it already was that there were too many prying eyes. Cameras, guards, witnesses- Jerry Arkham had emptily promised that one more incident would land him in the chair or under lethal injection. No more treatment. No more extreme isolation either, as cruel as it was. The Joker was reckless, sure, but he wasn't going to die if it wasn't on his own terms. And to be put down like a dog? What a disappointing way to wrap up his legacy.

"Junie-"

"Was it family that destroyed you?"

He was taken aback by her question. Turning his head and tilting it, he watched her from the corner of his eye and leant back in anticipation, those doe eyes of hers looking at him as if he had all the answers. Family? What would he know about family?

He answered, "Why? Did it destroy _you_?"

"That wasn't my question."

"That wasn't an _answer_." He forced a pretend smile for about half a second before he let it drop, Junie's face filled with absolute hopelessness. "Junie, you need to _relax_ ," He said, tongue wetting his lips. "I've painted a pretty _pic_ ture all _nice_ n'all. Because _you_ said it'd put me at, uh, at _ease_. Don't wanna ruin it by making me all _tense_ now, do you?"

She refused to look at him, bottom lip caught anxiously between her teeth. Shiny and white, they were like tiny pearls hidden behind her closed lips. He had to say, as plain as she was, her mouth fascinated him. Of course, it was intriguing to watch it move and talk, but when she didn't say anything at all, that was the best. Although, sometimes his mind did... wander a little... _wonder what her tongue looks like_...

She pursed her lips shyly, like she always did before changing the topic, blinking hard as if to resist tears, or perhaps feeling. _Family_ , he thought. So simple, little Junie- it was _family_ that bugged her.

"Have you, um, have you painted anything else?" Closing her hands in between her knees, she asked the question with one of the most forced smiles he'd ever seen, it looked like it hurt.

"Uh, _yeah_ , sure." Joker nodded, but as he was about to get up, he decided that asking first would do less to get her paranoid, "Uh, al _right_ if I...?" He pointed his thumb back towards the back corner of the room. Usually he wouldn't bother asking, but he could tell that Junie was a scared little squirmer. _Probably a rat, too._

"Oh, of course, of course."

When Joker slowly rose from his seat, back turned to her, June silently let go of a choked breath of desperation, clutching her chest as her eyes welled up- _Jesus, get ahold of yourself!_ Truthfully, she had no idea why she was so emotional. This talk of family and especially after Mara had pissed her off, it touched certain nerves and arose parts of her that she'd been suppressing for years; she hadn't thought about the lack of father she'd had since she was probably eighteen. All those years... had nothing changed?

Joker lazily sauntered over to the back of the room, paint-kissed hands swiping by his sides. There was a table there, and atop the table lay two other canvases, smaller than the one on his easel, with two other oil paintings he'd done that morning. His calloused hands carefully feathered over them to see if they'd dried, black eyes watching tentatively with stressed brows, and when he was sure that they were alright, he lifted them up and carried them back over, handing the first painting to Junie.

She took the canvas into her hands and with awe, she gasped breathlessly. "Oh, wow..." The canvas was about the length of her forearm, but even then she struggled to hold it as she looked at the abstract mess of red and black geometrical shapes. The painting itself was a nice juxtaposition- a series of different shaped triangles, then ruined with frustrated streaks of red and black paint, order and chaos all at once.

He saw her pupils dilate with wonder. "Uh, I did _that_ one _first_. I was getting _used_ to the, uh, the _brush_ es. Then I noticed I could do _more_ than just-ah, _shapes_."

"It's fantastic." Her words left her in the form of a thin sigh, a slight smile slowly tugging on her lips. Just as he was about to take it from her, she looked up. "Do you mind if I...?" Her fingers neared the canvas- she wanted to touch it.

His brows raised, surprised. She was asking _him_ for permission. See, as a doctor, Junie could technically do whatever she wanted. Hell, she had the power to toss the painting to the floor and stamp her little kitten heels right through it if she wanted to, yet she was still asking if it was alright to even _touch_ it. It felt good. It meant he still had power over people, even behind bars.

He nodded encouragingly, and watched how her delicate fingers folded downwards to meet the brush strokes on the canvas, fingertips kissing every protruding line and sinking dip. Her mouth, again, caught his attention. He saw the freckled bridge of her nose as she looked down at the painting, the crooked triangles caught in her eyes like the reflection of stars. There was this childlike wonder about Junie, from her curiosity to her naïvety **,** but also in the fact that she seemed to be a very sensitive person- of course emotionally, but also literally- she processed a lot of things through sight and touch and drank the world in a sensory way. Maybe it was just because she had those big Bambi eyes and little hands, but even he could tell the small nuances between her merely processing the world, and liking it. And he could tell she _loved_ it. Lived for every detail. Surely she'd be the type of person who'd read books by tracing the letters on the pages- not because she struggled with them, but because she liked them so much. And he was almost certain that that little part of her would get her into lots of trouble, and that made her so sweetly corruptible. So tempting to twist and bend... and it was the thought of her, bones broken and jaw split, that amused him so much as to make his mouth water.

"Oh, I love how you did all the little shapes down here," June said, drawing her finger down the canvas to the bottom of it. "It actually reminds me of this horror film I watched last night... wait, no, sorry. That sounds rude. Yours is way better, excuse me." She tilted her head back up. "How did painting this make you feel?"

Joker knew that she was asking for medical reasons, but he still obliged her with an answer. "Uh... I'm not s _u_ re. I think I was just getting _used_ to the feeling of something in my _hands_ again..." His mind shifted to think about his knifes and his chest tightened, _God_ how he missed them. It'd been almost a year since he'd cut somebody up nice and good. The painting, he had to admit, did relieve a lot of tension.

"If you don't mind me saying, I do notice that you fidget a little. With your hands."

"Fixated on guns n' _knives_ , sweetheart. Hard to let _go_ when you get so attached."

"You miss them?"

" _So_ much." A phrase she'd never thought she'd hear him say, and with such passion too. His chest even ached.

Her smile wavered, but only for a moment, as she then pointed to the other canvas he held. "Can I have a look at that one?"

He nodded, and the two switched paintings. As soon as June's eyes landed on the second painting, she grinned widely. "Wow, I really like this one."

At first glance, it seemed quite mundane- again, an oil painting (she started sensing a pattern here) of what seemed to be a normal bowl of fruit, only hidden behind the apples and underneath the grapes were little green hand grenades, barely noticeable until she looked closely. She pulled back with a surprised look and she turned to Joker, who was goofily smiling with pride, even letting out a little laugh when he saw her face. He thought the idea of it all was quite funny, actually.

June shook her head and blinked, turning to him with an almost pleading stare. "Where did you learn to paint like this?" She asked in awe. "I mean, look at these, they're... they're outstanding."

"Does it _matter_? I did what you _asked_ me to, didn't I?" He took the painting from her and her grasp almost remained holding it, arm left to hang weakly as he brought the two paintings back to the corner they were at.

"It isn't about that, Joker. It's about you. Where all this..." She paused as he sat down heavily in his chair, slouched forward towards the easel. "...this... artistry came from."

He was silent, words unspoken as he picked his brush back up and blotted it in the patch of red on his palette, the red that comforted him and made him think about something other than Junie and her nagging voice. So curious- but not even the good kind. The kind of curious that pissed him off, made her questions an unwelcome intrusion of his mind. He couldn't even feed her a lie; what was so interesting about being able to paint? What the hell did that say about him? He didn't remember where the hell he'd learnt it, didn't care either. In fact, his memory was rather blurry...

Minutes passed and June's question had long gone unanswered. She hated giving up so easily but she wasn't going to provoke The Joker if he refused to answer, and after a few seconds of thought, looking at his unfinished painting, her fingers found the strap of her bag and with an inward sigh she stood, wishing he would give her some indication that he was aware of her presence. He just sat there, painting, fingertips meeting closely at the end of the brush, like he were carefully carving shapes with a scalpel. Creating something new. She wondered what it felt to be the brush in his hand, but the thought left her mind as soon as it arose.

Turning to the door, June laid her hand on the handle and squeezing, she almost turned it. Almost. Until she turned around and looked at him, at first swearing he was looking back. But his eyes were on the canvas when she softly implored, "Paint..." Her words came out hard and strangled and she struggled with them. "Paint something you can remember. Anything." And then the next words left her mouth with such tenderness that she felt like she were blind, not quite seeing the murderer in the man before her. It was a childish plea, one that was said with an uncertain lilt of her voice and she felt something dangerously close to sympathy for him. "I won't tell anyone."

Joker didn't look up at her, not even when she left and the door finally clicked shut, but his eyes were cold and penetrating, the aimlessly painted flowers before him looking so... ugly. _I won't tell. Ha_. He snapped the paintbrush in his hand and let it drop to the floor, then ground the back of his teeth together irritably. _Something I remember, huh? Okay, Junie, alright._

He looked at the circles of paint he had lined up on the palette and dipped his index finger into the red paint, cold against the warmth of his skin. He brought his finger up to the painting, right at the very top, and slowly dragged it downwards, the red paint slicing through the painting, through the flowers, harsh and vivid. _Something you remember._ He moved as slow as a snake through grass. _Something you remember_. He brought the red paint all the way down... until there was a long streak of it, cutting the painting in half. _Something you remember._

When he'd finished, he sat back with a heavy breath and nodded in satisfaction.

 _Red line_. _That's something I remember_.

* * *

 _ **Ahh I know this is late, and again, I apologise so much. I'm finally done with exams so hopefully I can update more! I'm also working on future chapters for this story and I've hit a sort of creative rut, where I know the plot, but it's tricky to put it into words I like... idk. I think I put too much pressure on myself to make every word of writing artistic and poetic and stuff, so maybe I just need a break. Idk. Tell me what you prefer, fast dialogue or deep, lengthy paragraphs of prose :')**_

 _ **So yeah, kinda short chapter in terms of the session! Just wanted to sort of integrate Joker's surprise artistic talent in here. Also, red line. Who knows what that means? Only I doooo ;) haha, all will be revealed in good time!**_

 _ **Also, totally irrelevant- um? Lee Bermejo's Joker graphic novel? Has ANYONE read it? Please? UGH. Would LOVE to discuss! Honestly my fav comic/graphic novel by FAR! And Jonny Frost is actually such a relatable character in the way that he's just some schmuck who gets what he wishes for, but at a price. I had no idea he was in Suicide Squad and WHAT A TRAGEDY. They just resorted him to some generic bodyguard! What? Anyway... :')**_

 _ **I hope you enjoyed, leave a comment telling me what you think! I appreciate every single one and it really motivates me to do my best, you guys are literally the sweetest when it comes to my writing, even if it's total garbage! Which reminds me- I uploaded Apples onto Wattpad too so if you wanna leave a review or just contact me there, you're more than welcome to do so! The name's "the-killing-j0k3", just like it is here. Thank yooou!**_

 _ **Till next time!**_

 _ **-tkj**_


	8. Chapter 7: Darling Little Pill Box

**_A bit of a time skip for this chapter, nothing major, but June's about a month into treating the Joker._**

 ** _Also a HUGE apology to EVERYONE on behalf of how late this is. I don't think I've ever been this late when it comes to uploading chapters, but BS excuses aside, school is literally devouring me. I'm in year 12, see (idk what the American/other equivalent is) and since it's almost the end of the school year they've been piling work on us to prepare us for next year- so I genuinely haven't had ANY time to write- this is the first time I've properly written in almost three weeks, so I'm incredibly sorry! Hopefully by the end of the month I can continue to update more again, especially since the next chapter is... well... no spoilers but it gets the show on the road..._**

 ** _Again, sorry, and thank you all for being patient! Also, for those of you who'd like to be regularly updated and stuff, check out my profile- I usually post there when there's issues like this._**

 ** _Aside from that enjoy :)_**

 **Chapter 7: Darling Little Pill Box**

 _ **-**_

She didn't like shopping much, introverted Juniper Stoltz. Going out into the city was something she'd much rather avoid than ever face, but her fridge was empty and so she had to go grocery shopping (Chinese takeaway had started to lose its taste the sixth time she'd ordered it). It was made much worse by the fact that it was gone ten at night and walking from her car into the supermarket made her anxious, terrified she'd be jumped on the short twelve second walk over, but once she was there, she was relieved to find out that there weren't many people around, just the late night shoppers who had just come home from work, much like her. She pushed the cart around for what felt like hours, just passing through the same aisles over and over like some endless dream sequence, going in circles trying to decide whether she had enough money for her to _deserve_ those cinnamon buns. Stark lights flickered above her and buzzed, the same elevator-like tune on repeat. A surprisingly haunting place.

Her cart was barely full but then again, she didn't have a lot of money. Working on the Joker granted her no raise apparently, even when she told Dr. Arkham about his paintings, which elicited the dismal response of an eye-roll and denial when he said, _I'm sure it's just a momentary fluke of creativity, it'll pass_. And anyway, the paintings meant nothing when the Joker refused to tell her where he'd learnt to do it in the first place.

June stopped by the fruit aisle and looked at the apples, gently plucking one from its box and cupped it in her hands, and suddenly her mind was lost again in adventuring back to that forbidden realm of reflecting on things she shouldn't be. The apple. That rotten apple on the Joker's dinner tray, so vivid, so red, rolling across at her. She could hear it- as slick as the edge of a penny- rolling towards her. Rolling. His mouth painted red, as red as the fruit he offered to her. His hands stroking his own knuckles. His fingers clicking. Snapping. Rolling. His ridiculously uncouth grin when he said, _guess how old I am_. The harsh and bone-snapping crunch of the apple when he let his yellowed teeth sink into them like the gracious offering of flesh to a dog, the apple rolling, rolling, dropping to the tray. Pink jello. Apple rolling. _Guess how old I am. I wouldn't be interested if I were a mere three years older than you, Junie. Oh, Junie_. The apple again. Tempting. Fruitful Eve and the Devil-mouthed snake. Rolling across the table. Rolling, her head rolling back against her own pillow last night, mouth open and eyes closed at the thought of his hands-

A gasp left her as the apple slipped from her open palm and hit the floor with a crunch, splitting a chunk off of its side. June leapt back from it and yanked her cart towards her, and as dishonest as a child caught red-handed, she walked away so she wouldn't be held accountable. Nobody was looking, surely.

She refuged to the checkout, the only one open that night. Some teenage boy was working at it, about eighteen, the bags under his eyes as dark as his hair. His bored expression didn't change when he saw her.

No words were said when he scanned her items and she loaded them into a bag, but as she picked up the salad box and looked at the chewing gum display to her left, she also saw a display of boxes of playing cards and trading cards, all lined up like soldiers. She froze when she saw the fifty-two card deck. Playing cards. It ignited something. And then Joker wriggled his way back into her thoughts again. She'd always wondered what he did in that cell after-hours. Probably in a straightjacket, just staring up at the ceiling, but still, she wondered. Even during lunch or when he was in the rec room, his hands were always fidgeting, always toying with something, desperately fixated and yearning for those knives he'd had snatched away from him. She didn't deny for a second that she felt sympathetic for him, as silly as it was; she couldn't help but see that there was someone who existed even after she left the asylum. Even now, at ten o'clock on a Wednesday night, he was just in his cell, either awake or sleeping, with nothing but the walls to keep him company. It was human to feel that she wanted to make the experience less excruciating for him, wasn't it? Her job was to cure him, never stretch out his suffering.

The clerk still had a tin of canned peaches held out to her. "Uh, ma'am?"

She blinked, back in reality and took the can from his milky hand. "I'm sorry. Um, how much are those deck of cards?"

He furrowed his brows as though she looked stupid. She most likely was. "Uh, a dollar."

"Thanks. I'll have that too, please." June picked one up and tossed it in front of him.

And then they both said nothing once more until the last item was scanned and she was gone, spilling her pocket change into his hand, or what was left of it. He didn't stop her, didn't ask whether she wanted a receipt or not, just held the thin piece of paper into the air while he checked his phone and when he realised she had long gone, he sighed, scrunching it up and tossing it to the empty checkout in front of his.

June's car was cold when she got in, but huddled up in her coat, she was content on staying there. She eyed the box of cigarettes on the dashboard and defeatedly leaned over to get them, pulled out the lighter in her pocket and she lit it, throwing the lighter into the empty passenger's seat when she was done. She hadn't had a cigarette in months- was never truly an addict- and even though the taste wasn't as good or as cool as it used to be when she was eighteen, she felt a sense of relief in bringing back the clot of smoke down her throat, was happy to feel it settle in her chest and dissolve when she breathed back out. Eyes hard and fixed on the lamppost at the other end of the parking lot. A gust of wind carried a plastic bag over three parking spaces- _rolling_ \- until it got trapped underneath a rusted pickup truck. It caught her eye for only a second before she thought about the other interesting thing in her life- the Joker.

Looking at the cigarette propped between her fingers, she wondered if he smoked. Maybe he liked hard drugs. Or drinking.

Her brows knitted together as she took another drag, deep and long this time.

Or maybe murder was his other vice. She didn't know. Then sadly realised, she didn't care. She didn't care, not in the ignorant way, but in the way that for some reason, somehow, it wouldn't repulse her to find out his addictions. He could've told her he was a casino owner in Vegas who snorted coke off of strippers- or whatever they do in the movies- and she wouldn't care. She'd simply be enamoured, leaning forward, listening, always listening. Watch the words roll out of his mouth- _rolling_ \- and swim up into her ears, forever stitched into her brain to cover up the things she wanted to stop thinking about, so she didn't feel as bad in comparison to him. That was her burden: guilt. Guilt, it was... it was a strange thing. Plagued you for no reason sometimes, and it stayed with you, leeched onto your life and sucked up all the good things and turned it into deep and sickening tar. It'd been such a constant for her that she could hardly remember what she'd done to feel it, but it was always there in the back of her mind. She still hoped for some normalcy. Joker must've felt _some_ guilt, she hoped- he killed people for kicks, he said- and yet he managed to wear guilt like a charm bracelet. How did he do it? She would've killed to know.

Fingers shyly fiddling with the pocket on her coat, she propped the cigarette between her teeth as she dug out the deck of cards amongst old candy wrappers and pieces of paper with addresses, numbers and grocery lists, and she held it in her hand and took the cigarette back out of her mouth. Softly stroking her thumb along the box of cards, she exhaled heavily, a poignant sigh of... something. Sympathy, maybe. Thinking of Joker- _wonder what he's doing right now_ \- how fascinating it all was to think that he had a life outside of her work hours, even though that life was stuck inside the walls of a cell. She wondered, pondered- sliding out the top tongue of the little box and flicking to the back to take out the joker card- right now, this minute, what was he doing, and what would he be doing if she were there. And that was a dangerous thing to think about, as the night time made her thoughts wander to places they really shouldn't go. Images of his pale painted flesh and how it smeared the underside of his chin as it got caught on the straightjacket he was bound to, his green matted hair, spiralled into childish little semibreves on the paper-thin pillow he never really slept on; his mouth, so red, so ambiguous and red, sat in a straight and unwavering line as he did nothing but bide his time with the unsleeping daydreams that the ceiling offered him. She wondered. What he was like when nobody else was around.

June threw her cigarette out of the window and then, peacefully bringing the joker card to be pressed against her half-dried lips, she had no intention of kissing it or anything silly like that; she just held it to her closed mouth, just to see what it felt like, to see if it made her feel any warmer.

It did.

9:55 a.m, next day. Thumb pressed against the joker card she'd taken out from the deck. She was in the confines of her office yet again, closed off to the rest of the world, the rain hammering down against the windows and bringing her comfort, a kind of knocking from the outside world that reminded her that everything was still moving. That even when she wasn't bothered to contribute, the world still turned.

Cue the knocking at the door.

Her head snapped up and she frantically hid the joker card between a stack of papers beside her. "Um- come in."

June went stiff as Colter trudged in slowly, almost shamefully, hands clamped together in front of him as his boots obnoxiously treaded in. His face was contorted into a pitied frown, but June could still see exactly how his eyes looked at her with contempt, and as he went to shut the door, June almost yelped.

"No, don't close it!"

He stopped in his tracks, brow raised with a grimace on his face. "Why not?"

"I-I don't like the door shut." She said.

"Why not?" He almost smirked, toying with the door handle.

"Um. Claustrophobia."

He finally let go of the door handle and she could let go of her breath again. It was all a lie- in truth, she preferred the door closed. But with Colter in her office, it was different. With Colter in her office, that was what incited her nonexistent claustrophobia. Being locked in with him. "What do you want?" She asked.

"Wanted to- uh, is that lipstick?"

June instinctively reached up to touch her slightly reddened lips. "No," she lied.

"Oh. Uh. Anyway. I wanted to, uh, talk about the other night." He drawled, the aftermath of another drunken night watching the late night 80's porno movies.

June had to think for a moment about what he was talking about, but then it came to her: the night he'd dumbly showed up and bawled outside her door all night. The night she didn't sleep.

Stuttering shyly, she placed her hands under the desk, on her lap. "Oh." Fingers pressing down the hem of her skirt.

Where she'd expected him to apologise for his drunken and stupid behaviour, his attitude changed completely and he was stood there, beefy arms crossed as he glared down at her. "Whadd'ya want me to _do_ , Junie? Huh?"

"I said not to call me J-"

"I've been so nice to you. I open doors for you-"

"Unlocking the interviewing room for me doesn't count, Colter."

"-I always tell my friends how hot I think you are-"

"You tell them I'm the only hot black girl you've ever met."

"-and I even turned down Mara for you. Do you know how hot she is?" He almost shouted, getting red in the face. "I do so damn much for you and you always turn me down- you owe me, Junie. I _deserve_ you. I've done so much for you."

"You grope me by the vending machine when I go to get a cola." She said, bottom lip trembling as she saw how angry he had suddenly gotten. A ticking time-bomb.

He brushed it off with a scoff. "C'mon, I haven't done that in months."

"Because I don't go by the vending machine anymore, Colter! Because of you!" June's voice was louder than she'd meant it to be, but she almost didn't care. It was ridiculous- this whole farce. Endless, it'd been going on for years. Constantly harassing her and following her and _he_ was the reason she'd changed the locks.

Colter sighed heavily and sarcastically laughed, in spite of her. "Y'know what, Junie?"

"What?" She barked.

"You're a fucking ungrateful bitch."

"Oh, _please_ elaborate." She retorted, getting ready to grab her bag and leave for the interview with the Joker. God, what she'd give to be sat with him right now, away from the freak she was currently dealing with. They'd be talking about much more intellectual things, things she liked and things he saw as strange. How she relished to be in the company of a madman instead of the intrusion of a guard who she walked by every day!

"When you were an intern here," He began, "I showed you everything. I showed you where everything was, who everyone was, and I really liked you."

"And you had a girlfriend."

"It didn't matter. I would'a cheated on her for you."

"That isn't a compliment."

"How the fuck not? Sacrifice! It means I'd sacrifice her for you! And me and her, we had, like, fucking _great_ sex."

"That's still not a compliment! It's gross!" She forced a spiteful laugh, arms tossed in the air.

"You even went on a date with me."

"One time!" She cried, standing up and gathering her things. She was ready to make a break for it at this point. "We went on _one_ date. And you know full well that I had no idea you were already with someone."

Colter rolled his eyes. "Oh, c'mon, like it mattered. I spent my whole fuckin' rent money on that restaurant."

"So you don't remember how it turned out afterwards? How you decided to take a 'shortcut' down that street so we could meet your friends? I-" Her throat felt like it closed up and she shook her head. "Forget it. Get out of my office, Colter."

"Don't fuckin' talk to me like-"

"I'm calling Cash right now if you don't leave." She threatened, pointing to the phone on her desk.

Unbelieving of her, he smiled perversely, arms crossed.

She crossed towards the phone and suddenly he stiffened, uncrossing his arms. That millisecond frame before June picked up the phone was eerie and tense, it was the feeling she got each time she walked home at night or passed by an alleyway. It was complete and total vulnerability, even with the door open, even with her fingers on the phone- it was a gamble between him running out the door or seizing her throat in his hand.

But then the fear stopped, when she picked up the telephone and Colter let out a defeated and poisonous sigh, hissing under his breath before giving up, like the relentless hunter who'd mistakenly let his prey get away. "Fuck you, Junie," He said, spitting the nickname out as if he chose it, like he owned it. "Fuck you." Then he left, and on the way out, he purposely swung the door open so it hit the wall, denting it. She cried out as if the wall were herself.

June let go of the phone and hunched over her desk, knees shaking and heart thumping. The butterflies in her tummy that Colter incited were never pleasant, never, they always tasted sour and made her lose her appetite, and the worst thing was that Colter _never_ stopped. He never did. He was sleazy and jumped from girl to girl to woman to woman, but no matter how many times he got rejected, he'd be fixated on that one girl until he could finally have his way. To June it was obvious: it wasn't about obsession or love, or reputation or even sex, it was about power. It was always about power. Power was the exact thing that Colter had always had. Captain of the football team, who lost his virginity to raping the head cheerleader on campus- that part of his brain had always terrified June. She didn't stay in his head to watch, of course, but once she'd seen the memory of him tearing off that poor girl's dress as she whimpered _stop_ , it was enough. He was addicted to that kind of power. Belittled and abused his mother, poor woman. Beat up patients no matter how sane or insane, super criminal or not. And then June. Perversely groping her since she was nineteen and so wide-eyed when she first met him, how he seemed so noble at first glance with his muscled physique and kind, caring (lying) mouth. _Oh, let me carry your bag for you, miss. Oh, let me show you around. What's your name? June? What a pretty name. June. Like the month. June. Let me introduce you to the others, June. Let me take you out Saturday, June. Let me order you this drink, June. Let me show you a shortcut to my place, June. Let me introduce you to the others. June, it's just the guys from work. June_. _Don't call the fucking cops, June. You fucking bitch, June_. _You goddamn fucking bitch._

Funny how memories stay even when you try to forget them.

She escaped her thoughts by following the usual routine: check the time, linger until it was time for her patient interview and then go after locking up her office and pocketing the keys. Her hand grasped for the audio diary in her bag and her fingers slid across the deck of cards she'd taken, still debating what exactly she was going to do with them. Perhaps... give them to him...? It was against every rule, but...

Interviewing room, the silver plaque on the door and another nameless guard stood next to it. She had to stop thinking about her issues in work. It was disrupting her concentration. She didn't even remember the walk on the way here.

"Is the patient in there?" June asked the guard, impatiently tapping her foot.

The guard sighed tiredly as if he _wasn't even payed to do this crap_ , and just unlocked the door for her. It seemed like the two of them were having less than good mornings.

They wasted no time on small talk. No time talking at all, actually. June simply stepped into the interviewing room and when the door shut, her shoulders dropped, relaxed. _Home at last_ , it felt like.

"Morning, Joker." Came the routine greeting as she sat down.

The clown was hunched over the table with his arms folded to make a pillow for his tired head, but the instant he heard the sound of her heels delicately tracing the room- before she even had the time to speak- he'd shot up, alert, ears perked if he were a dog.

"You're a little _late_ , _are_ n't you, Junie?" Of course, it was only by a few minutes, but he counted every second on that clock when she didn't show up, passing the time by teasing her in the back of his mind. She was never usually so careless, his Junie. Always very punctual- except for that first day- but it was excusable; it all was, especially when he was having so much fun with his... his... what's the quote from that weird book he'd seen? _My... palpitating darling_? Yes. Junie, his palpitating darling. The title fit her like the finest pair of shoes.

Today, he'd noticed, she looked sleepless and tired (like she always did), but this morning was different, she was agitated. As if something were bothering her. And was she wearing... lipstick?

"Junie?" He cooed upon realising her silence. "I _said_ , why're you so _late_ , doll?"

"Got distracted," She sighed, looking at how he childishly sat, black dot-eyes gazing up at her. "Unwelcome guest in my office."

He jokingly raised a brow. "Anyone I'd be _in_ terested to _know_ about?"

She laughed with malice, the spiteful and revengeful cackle of a child. "Colter, actually."

Grinning widely, Joker slowly sat up and hummed, pleased with her answer. Interested. Excited. "What's he done _this_ time? Camped in your _office_ instead of your a _part_ ment?"

"Looking for conflict. I dunno what his deal is." She groaned, running her fingers through her thick, tightened curls. She hadn't brushed it, he noticed, and he rather liked it.

"Ooh, that actually _does_ re _mind_ me-" He shuffled his chair forward, "-you never, uh, _told_ me what's going _on_ between you two. And you _swore_ to tell me if I did _art_ therapy." His eyes were narrowed and he searched her face, attention caught when he saw her rifling through her bag for something. "I mean, a promise _is_ a prom-uh... what're you _doing_?"

She raised her head for only a moment but then kept looking. "Sorry, I, um..." Her fingers scrambled for the pill box in her bag- somewhere, somewhere, next to the bottle of water. "Sorry, I have a splitting headache and I'm trying to look for my painkillers. I should've done this earlier. Sorry."

" _Well_ , don't _apol_ ogise, sweetheart. We _all_ make mistake _s._ " He mocked her in an emotionless tone, tongue pressed against the front of his teeth. She was hunched over in such a way that she was practically under the table, and all he could see of Junie was her dark hair moving over the side of the table as she searched and searched. Such an odd girl. That was always the word to describe her with: odd. Curious and odd. Oddly curious.

"No, it..." She finally found the box and grasped it along with the water bottle, sitting normally again as she placed them both on the table. She brushed a few stray curls from her eyes and watched him carefully as if he'd snatch the pill box. He never did, he just sat back casually, calmly, looking at her with those wonderfully intrusive eyes of his. "It's very-"

"Un _profess_ ional?" His tone was beyond condescending.

"Yeah." Sighing, she unscrewed the cap of the water bottle with calm and languid fingers.

The Joker found great satisfaction in seeing her like this: much like him, popping pills to make it through the day. Of course, she did it by choice, but he never bored of swallowing his own happy pills if it meant he could stop feeling nostalgic about his _other half_ for a few hours. Oh, how the Joker missed him. Tall, dark, brooding... and only the mouth and eyes were seen, only they mattered... much like himself.

He shook the thought quickly- _not going_ there _again_.

" _I_ take pills," He said to his less-favoured companion, " _You_ take pills. Junie, we're starting to have a _lot_ in _com_ mon here." He grinned toothily, propping his head up by his cheek.

"They're painkillers, Joker," She said, pausing briefly to pop one in her mouth and swallow it down with some water. "I'm not on any kind of actual meds." Although there _was_ that time when she was eighteen...

"Well, you _ought'a_ be."

"Excuse me?" She snapped, mouth still half full with water. The words gargled in the bottom of her mouth and at this very moment he swore she was just a girl again, hand pressed over her puckered lips to avoid looking rude.

"Pardon my _saying_ , of course, I mean it in, uh, _no_ off _ence_ or anything. But you always look so _tired_. Do you even _sleep_?" He placed his hands back on the table with a false look of concern. She dejectedly packed away her bottle and pill box- darling little pill box, yet her hands were almost just as small- and then he sighed, regretful of not paying enough attention to her taking the pills; seeing the pill in her hand, the way she swallowed it. It would've been amusing to watch her neck bend back so much and her throat tense and contort as she gulped it down. He had such a disgusting fascination with her neck and muscles, a grotesque obsession, as he imagined snapping everything that held them together between his fingers and jaws. This was the kind of thing he thought about when he didn't sleep at night- murdering her beautifully.

But there was something wrong here. With all this, there was something wrong. He felt awfully dismal, and it dawned upon him after a few moments of her apprehensive silence that- with an inward sigh- Junie had started to lose her spark. At first it wasn't at all apparent, it just seemed like she was being a bit quiet, but then he looked at her, her dullish doe eyes now swollen with sleeplessness, her mouth permanently folded into that pitied frown that didn't amuse him at _all_. Maybe it was just because he'd expected the most out of today's session, but it felt so... underwhelming to see her. And as pretty as she looked when she downed a palmful of pills, he realised that it made her real, too real to be entertaining, so real that he realised that she looked, sat, walked, talked, acted _just_ like everyone else; and as funny as it could be at times to dissect someone's personality like that, he'd had at least the tiniest shred of hope that Junie would finally be the exception- the one who stood out from the rest. She was awfully bright compared to the other doctors that'd treated him, surprisingly sympathetic and out-of-the-blue odd. But if she were just always like this- miserable, tired, knuckle-biting and lip-pursing- she was no fun at all. Her curiosity would dissipate, dissolve into nothing. And he was _bored_.

" _Ju_ nie." He dully said, her eyes now lurid with an empty transparence. She wasn't listening to him- _again_ \- daydreaming and getting lost in her thoughts- _again_ \- that silly brat (perhaps brat was too harsh, brats were aware of their brattiness, Junie was just a tad bit delusional at times. Odd, odd, odd and strange).

Joker's question lingered on her mind. Did she ever sleep? Did she care whether she did or not? All she ever did was think about him, talk about him into her little audio diary, her whole world revolved around him and she didn't know why. It was killing her, seeing his face behind her closed but-not-asleep eyes, hearing his voice in the television static hours after her programmes had ended. Why? Why was it like that? Why was she so obsessed with the only criminal she wasn't afraid of?

Joker could've slapped her for her incessant daydreaming. He clicked his fingers, tapped them on the table in front of her, " _Ju_ nie. Junie. Ju- _u_ -u _nie_."

She regained consciousness, her rounded eyes glassy with lethargy and perhaps even the feeling of wanting to cry. She was about a month into treating him by now. Twenty or thirty-something days of sitting opposite him, pretending like she was doing all of this in the name of science, and denying herself that she did this all just to feed her own selfish curiosity, just to spit in everyone's face and laugh at those who told her she could never cure him. But right then, looking at him... she realised that for the longest time, she'd only ever seen him as human, part-monster, and never the other way around, like it was supposed to be. No matter how deep she looked without wriggling into his memories for the evidence, she could never see him for the murdering madman he was; she only saw fragments of a man trapped inside the walls of this asylum, a man who liked movies, was a sensational and anonymous painter, a man whose makeup had just become a part of him, it was just who he was, never to conceal, never a façade. She had been studying him for hours and yet she had really learned nothing. And maybe it was this that kept her up at night, how she would've for once liked to have offered him her cup of coffee so they could both just talk about the things they didn't have in common. The strange things he liked to do, like never turning the volume on. Playing with his hands. In one session before he'd said that he liked liquorice- the only person June had ever met who had finally agreed with her on that front. Liquorice? Of course it was against the rules to bring him _that_ \- but the thought was... nice. It'd make a change from those damned apples he always tried to offer whenever she accompanied him to lunch. And still she wished to forever dwell in the crunching sounds of his teeth sinking into that fruit- just to feel what his mouth would-

" _Junie_ , you haven't, uh, spoken about _anything_ but those precious little _pills_ of yours. Say, s'there any _point_ to this session?" His voice seemed to echo around her like ripples and she looked up to see him bored, elbows on the table, cheek in hand, again. What a soul-crushing thing it was to see him miserable and so down-looking of her. It was almost as if she _wanted_ to please him.

"I suppose I could wrap this session up earl..." As June reached down for her bag, she saw it, sat atop all the other belongings she had crammed in there; the little rectangular box, the fifty-two card deck. Already frayed at the edges, she remembered briefly falling asleep into a thirty minute slumber in the car, with it in her hand like some kind of comfort toy. She glanced up at him, ever-bored, ever-gloomy. The exhaustion of someone who just simply didn't care.

Then, she was bent over toward her bag again, tiny body disappearing almost completely under the table once more, and he clenched his fists in absolute frustration. Her and that damned bag- the hell was she looking for now? More pills to gobble down? Joker rolled his eyes. _God, oh, God_ \- not that there is a God- _please_ _overdose_.

Teeth grit, he hardened his eyes at her. "Junie, I _swear_ , one more _min_ ute of you-"

"I found it, I found it." Her left hand came peeking out from under the table and she raised a finger in her defence.

"Wh- found _what_? Sleeping pills? _Please_ , share." He groaned sarcastically, sliding down in his chair as he hunched over unenthusiastically.

"No, I've got-" She paused a moment to sit upright, tidying her hair as she placed something on her lap. "I've got-"

" _Prob_ lems? _Cooties_? Wouldn't sur _prise_ me."

"Stop being so mean."

"Then stop being so _vapid_ and tell me what you've _got_."

Licking her lips, she shyly pursed them and placed something on the table, sliding it towards him. Brows knotted suspiciously, he watched as her little index finger pushed it along, and then, realising the table was a tad bit larger than she'd anticipated, she rose out of her seat and leant over it, forearm outstretched and her sleeve rode up as it rarely ever did, those three star-like freckles visible on her wrist like he was watching her through a magnifying glass. Hair falling over her shoulders, frayed curls pressed against her blushing cheeks. And then the lightest thud when she sat back down. Her girlish sigh of relief.

It took him perhaps a moment to finally tear his eyes away from her and actually look at whatever she'd got, sat in the middle of the table.

It was small, a little rectangular box, the size of his palm, perhaps smaller (it was then he thought about how little her pill box was in her own hand, and then wondered how tiny it'd look in his) and when his eyes fixed on the red writing on the top, his brows shot up in... dare he say, interest.

He peeked up to see Junie grinning childishly, lips stretched with the first genuine display of kindness without that unwanted side order of pity he'd ever seen her give. She urged him with a little tilt of her hand, "Go on, have a look."

He reached out towards the box and held it, leftover face paint on his hands smudging a streak of white across it as he looked at it, then sighed with the shallow chuckle that followed. Playing cards. She got him playing cards. She was now smiling with that shy distance she always held and he looked at her as if to say, _really_? Playing cards. Out of everything in the world- knives, guns, explosives, sweet, sweet gasoline- she'd given him a deck of goddamned playing cards.

"Oh, _Junie_ ," He tutted, turning the box over in his hands and clicking his tongue, "Oh, Junie, Junie, _Junie_..."

Worriedly, her shoulders rose and she frowned, "Don't- don't you like it?"

He shook his head, "Oh, Junie, it isn't _that_ , it's..." His breath hitched into a laugh and he opened the box, pouring the cards into his hand, smile widening so much that surely his scars could disappear behind it. Stupid wasn't the word he'd ever use to describe her- but naïve? Perhaps so. That was not to say, of course, he looked down upon the action, no, never, in fact, he admired it. They both knew very well that patients weren't allowed to be given anything by their doctors other than approved medicines and therapy talks- smiles were hardly even encouraged- and yet she'd just brought him something that would entertain him for far longer than _she_ probably ever could. Such recklessness! Such blind bravery, his little Junie Stoltz! Such a silly act of kindness that'd surely get her into lots of trouble (that was, of course, if he decided to tell anybody). He could perhaps try to get her to bring in a gun next time...

She spoke as timidly as the first time they met, _such a long, long time ago, it seemed_... "Since we were talking about how you fidget with your hands, well..." She shrugged, "It got me thinking. So I thought you might like them."

His eyes were dark with malice and the need- the want, the ache, the insatiable thirst- to praise his little... ( _that quote, that quote_?) _palpitating darling_ \- the need to praise his palpitating _Junie_ to encourage her to do it again. He falsified a smile as kind and as grateful as he could make it seem- _yes, thank you, oh, doctor, how lovely, how kind, yes, but maybe next time bring me something a little more... knife-shaped? Or perhaps something with a bomb strapped to it_? _Just a birthday gift idea._

"Junie, you _shouldn't_ have." He grinned, teeth grinding as he let the cards slip and shuffle in his fingers, smooth and cold.

She laughed, almost in relief. "No, I _really_ shouldn't have. I'm really not- not even allowed, actually."

"Then _why_ risk it?" He chuckled, amazed at her... willingness. Her whole thought process. _Queen of Hearts, King of Spades, Ace, Ace, Ace..._

Her whole body stiffened with a sheepish shrug as she simply tried to giggle away her worries- it was like she'd been stung by his question. "I don't know, I don't know. I guess I just felt..."

Shuffling the cards, he peered up at her when he saw that she fell silent. "...sympa _thet_ ic?"

"I suppose, yeah."

He smirked to himself. _Like a book, Junie, you're like a goddamned book and it's all written in the title._

And again, silence. The nice kind, June felt. The silence that was filled with nothing no more restless than the soft flicking and snapping of cards, his hands- _oh no, his hands_ \- how expertly they moved, twisted, wrist bending, fingers crooked at catching every card that left his grasp for a second- her thighs tightening, lip bit, _thoughts go away, thoughts go aw_ -

"Where's the, uh, _last_ one?"

June let go of a breath so massive that it sounded like she was being strangled. The creases in his forehead tightened as he wondered what her deal was.

"W-what- what was that?" She dazedly asked, fingers gripping knees.

"Where's the _last_ card?" He asked.

"What last card?"

"The _joker_ card. It ain't _here_."

June blinked cluelessly at him before she remembered, knew, just exactly where the joker card was. In between that pile of papers in her office, the same card that kept her company like a goddamn house guest when she placed it on her bedside table the night before. It was just a funny little decoration, a little joking poke to herself, nothing more, nothing more...

She puckered her lips and shook her head. "I don't know. Manufacturing issue, maybe?"

"Hm." He didn't believe her, but neither did he care to. He could tell when she was lying by the raised octave in her timid little voice. Uncaring, he changed the subject. "Uh, _say_ , wanna see a _magic_ trick, Junie?"

Unsettled, she raised a curious brow. "What... kind of magic trick?" She asked, well aware that his idea of a magic trick ranged from a simple coin toss to a pencil through the eye.

He showed her the cards in his hands, still shuffling. "J _u_ st a-" He blew a strand of hair from his eyes, "Just a simple _card_ trick, nothing m _o_ re. Un-for _tun_ ate- _ly_ I don't got any _hats_ I can pull _rabbits_ outt'a, so cards'll have to do. Whadd'ya _say_?" His smile was goofy and crooked, wanting her to play along.

After a moment's thought, she decided that it was seemingly harmless. "Alright, fine. What've I got to do?"

He smirked a little, it took no convincing whatsoever to get her to cooperate. " _All_ you've gotta _do_ , Junie, is just sit there _nice_ and q _ui_ et for me while I shuffle these _cards_ here."

Almost excited, she stilled her rocking legs and nodded, patiently waiting. When was the last time she'd seen a magic trick anyway?

Shuffling once more- the seventh time, to make the order completely random- he fanned the cards out, face down, and offered them to her. "Pick a _card_ , Junie, _any_ card."

It was nice. Junie was easily entertained by cheap party tricks and card games, so with an eager smile, she plucked one right out of the centre.

" _Don't_ let me _see_ it. _Mem_ orise it."

She did exactly that, leaning back and holding the card close to her face, both thumbs pressed tightly as she held it. Queen of Hearts.

" _Done_?"

"Mhm." She nodded.

"A'right, now put it _back_ ," He said, shuffling the cards into a pile and splitting it in the middle so she could slot it there. He shuffled the cards again and she caught herself watching him in what felt to be mesmerisation, his concentrated stare and his furrowed brow as he randomised the deck, fingers folding in and out delicately as he picked a few cards and shuffled them back in.

He split the deck into three, still face down, and once he'd lined the three stacks side by side, he motioned them to her. " _Flip_ over the, uh, _top_ ones n' tell me if your _card's_ there."

She muttered a small 'okay' and flipped over the first card: the three of Diamonds; the second: the Queen of Hearts and then the third: the Ace of Clubs.

He watched her now lively brown eyes scan the three. "Well? Is it _there_?"

"Yes." She nodded.

His large hands scooped up the cards again, mouth tilted, and began shuffling for the ninth time. As he did so, he noticed how closely she was watching his hands with her mouth agape and he smirked deviously, teasing her. "These are _magic_ fingers, Junie. _That's_ the only magician's secret _I'll_ share."

Her eyes widened at his words and at first she denied she'd even heard them. "Magic fingers?"

He slowly licked his bottom lip, cards _snap snap snapping_ , and nodded, eyes so dim and dark that it was like staring into the bottom of endless wells. So- so he _had_ said that?

"Of _course_ ," He began with a tilt of his head, "Only a magician's, uh, _glam_ orous _assistant_ gets to see what they can _really_ do." Oh, he could've screamed with laughter at the colour of her face! So red that an apple held nothing to her! And her chest, her little- always the words little, and curious, and odd when it came to describing Junie, wasn't it?- her little chest and compact rib cage, how it shakily rose and fell, so soft, so light, like a feather. Too damn delicate for her own good. He couldn't wait to tear her apart, limb by skinny little limb. Like plucking legs off of a spider.

As June went to ask what exactly being a glamorous assistant meant, or even required, he slapped down the deck of cards on the table, snapping her violently out of her trance. He pointed to the deck. "Okay, so, _this_ is the, uh, the big re _veal_. I'm gonna show you _three_ cards and if one'a them's yours, then the magic _works_."

"And if it doesn't?"

There was a short pause of hesitation before he scoffed with a laugh. "Wasn't ever _dressed_ to be a magician _any_ way," he joked, gesturing to his painted face.

June quietly chuckled as he dramatically prepared himself for the reveal, pretending to be all anxious and nervous about it, an immature act that still managed to amuse her. He placed the first card down in front of her, face up. Six of Clubs.

" _This_ your card?"

She leant over the table and she grinned with a shake of her head.

"How about..." He placed down the second one. " _This_ one?" Ace of Spades.

"Nope."

Joker took a moment to peer over the table and he eyed the card, before tutting. "That's a _lucky_ card, Junie. _Shame_."

"Oh. Well-"

"Okay, okay, _last_ try." He acted silly as he took a deep breath in and exhaled through his circled lips as he blew air into her face, making her scoff and shake her head. Her lovely curls followed her. He slapped the last card down and looked up at her expectantly.

Eight of diamonds.

June broke out into a smile but she still shook her head. "N... no. It's not my card."

He was silent as he looked at her, eyes piercing deep. She was worried for a second what might happen; maybe he'd lunge at her and strangle her for somehow messing up his act, or maybe he'd kill her for thinking that she was lying. But instead he picked up the deck and bent it back so they all flew into her face, causing her to yelp in laughter and swat them away. "Hey, stop it!" She couldn't help but giggle as he spitefully laughed, probably the happiest he'd ever seen her- and for such a stupid reason. She must've been weak.

As her laughter died down, she turned her head and stared at all the cards littering the table and the floor, watching with forgetful fearlessness as he just up and rose out of his seat to collect the cards on the floor as she leaned over to scoop up the ones on the table, neatening them up into a pile. He was crouched down on the floor, picking up each one individually simply to stall for time so he could catch a glimpse of her on her tiptoes as she reached over the table. Her shoes were perhaps a tiny bit too big for her and when she rested forward on her toes her heels came loose from the shoes and he saw the inward arch of her foot, concealed by black nylon stockings, and how tiny her ankles were and he wondered how on earth they managed to support her whole body, being that small. He wanted to... kill her. Black and interested eyes practically walking up her form. He could do it- engulf her bony little ankles in his hand and yank them back, get her jaw to collide with the table and smash right back up into her skull, her eyes- _pop_! She'd be gone. One less thing to think about when he didn't sleep and hey, he even got a deck of cards out of it.

After she'd collected the cards together, June stepped back to get her bag and when she saw him crouched next to her, she yelped in shock. Her palm slapped over her mouth, her eyes widened and then crinkled with a shy and embarrassed laugh, eventually crouching down with him to help collect the cards. God knows if somebody walked in with them all over the floor- she'd be fired on the spot.

Maybe it was because he was sickly voyeuristic, but every time he saw Junie in another varied position, like now, crouched down so small that her back was hunched and her bare palms pressed against the floor, the spark she had slowly vanished. She became less and less of a mystery the more things she did, and he knew that when she'd done everything, shown him everything, used up all her kindness on him in the name of sympathy, she'd be spent. Done, book finished, and the last page would be such a _bore_. And when she had all the cards collected in her previously pill-box-bearing palms, she offered them to him, smiling. _Smiling_. Smiling when he wanted to _murder_ her! It was hilariously sick, so, so hilarious and sick and grotesque and yes, just gross. It was gross. He wanted to kill her so damn much when she smiled so obliviously that it drove him insane- more so than he already was, if at all.

Still, he took the cards from her and they both rose, all the cards in a pile now. They exchanged no words as he put them all back into the box.

"Well..." June sighed, placing her bag on the table, "I think our session's finished..."

"What _day's_ it tomorrow?" He asked to fill the silence, voice a low and monotonous hum.

"Um... Tuesday."

"Righ- _t_."

"Right."

So awkward she was, with her handbag over her shoulder, hand knotted around the strap so tight that she shook, a tremulous and fake smile on her lips. With a shy nod, she turned on her heel, almost stumbling, and stepped toward the door. His eyes were narrowed at her, little black-eyed slits that didn't like the prospect of her simply just _leaving_. He glanced at the deck of cards as if they'd speak to him.

"Uh, _Ju_ nie."

She turned her head with a hum and was startled to find him stepping towards her, towering and tall, and she began to pace backwards until she was met with the chilling embrace of the wall against her spine, as if it could help her. There she was, sure she was about to die, eyes shut tight when there was hardly an inch between them.

Then came the most terrifying feeling in her life- his hand, right there, it was against her neck, she was so sure, and when she expected it to tighten around her throat, closing the only glimpse of life and breath and everything she had, it pulled on her hair, the strands that were tied to the nape of her neck.

Her eyes were shut, so scared, and he grinned to himself, eyes almost rolling into the back of his head and- _God, yes_ , he _knew_ that's what her hair would feel like. Velvet. Like velvet. Black ribbons of velveteen gold. Of course, when she opened an eye to look at him, he pretended to feel around in her hair like there was something in it. "What's this _here_?"

Both eyes snapping open wide, she panted like she couldn't breathe, "What is it?"

"I _feel_ something right _here_." He told her very matter-of-factly, finger behind her ear.

June went to reach her hands up, fearing it was a bug or something, but he swatted them away stubbornly. She reasoned hopelessly, "It might be a... a hairpin maybe, or a-"

He shook his head, " _No_ , _def_ initely not tha _-t_."

She silently whined, tongue bit, "Oh my God, it's totally a bug, ew, gross, gross, gross..."

"No, it's-" He then hummed in satisfaction, smiling widely. " _Ah_... I think I _found_ something of yours."

Confused, Junie's curious (curious, curious, curious, curious and _odd_!) eyes searched his in panic. "Mine? What do you mean, mine- what- what is it?"

He snapped his fingers behind her ear and she stiffly jumped, but soon and surprisingly relaxed as he pulled something out from her hair, and presented it to her all whilst grinning, almost cruelly. And there it was, June was looking at her card, the Queen of Hearts.

Left speechless, he spoke in turn of her, "I _know_ I used up my three _guess_ es, but, uh..." he sucked the insides of his scars and flicked the back of the card with his finger. "S' _this_ your card?"

Hesitantly reaching for it, June held the card and stared at him as if he'd conjured it up from pure magic. It was the only explanation, surely to God. He was smirking at her, far too close for her to be enjoying it, and with a hollow gasp, she whispered, "The magic works."

He chuckled, softly and stepped back once. "S'that a _yes_?"

June stuttered breathlessly, the card fluttering from her fingers and she swiftly stepped away from the wall, turning to the door so fast that the second her hand was on the handle, it swung open and she was gone, leaving him alone for the next few minutes.

And he laughed, he laughed so split-achingly and hard that his stomach hurt, he laughed violently enough that he had to sit on the table to steady himself, hands gripping the deck of cards in knowing that his Junie had grown weak at the mere act of him pretending to be sweet. And he also laughed, giggled, shook and trembled with glee at the thought that the next session, he wouldn't be so kind. Junie was spent, see, she was done, her fun was expendable and she had become nothing more than a repeated distraction to numb him, medication that had lost its effect fast. She was the temporary replacement of his other incorruptible project (who was much _more_ than a project, _thankyouverymuch_ \- _that_ immovable object was his star-crossed, cape-clad dreamboat- dream _bat_ \- _thankyouverymuch_ ), but replacements didn't go very far, especially when he couldn't forget the original. There was no replacing his first, especially with someone so ordinary as Junie Stoltz- and to stand in the place of his (dark, dark) knight- it was laughable! Unheard of!

Yet it was awfully dismal to think so, after what fun they'd had, but he'd decided through cracked laughs and torn howls that their next session would finally be their last. Next session, he was to brutally murder and artistically mangle poor, innocent, doe-eyed and palpitating Junie Stoltz.

 ** _Yes, he's talking about Batsy._**

 ** _So for those of you who aren't Nabokov fans, that 'weird' book quote Joker mentions ("my palpitating darling", which I'm only repeating over and over again through narrative bc Joker is weird) is from Vladimir Nabokov's 'Lolita', one of my all time favourite books. It's disgustingly controversial (for those of you who haven't read it, it's practically a 'diary' noting the events of 40-ish year old Humbert Humbert pursuing his landlord's 12 year old daughter, Dolores Haze)- and just to make it clear if you do know about it, I do not romanticise it in any way shape or form, although the aesthetics of the films are quite pretty :) The book is pretty long and stuffed FULL of purple prose, metaphors, etc etc, so if you don't much care or have time to read it, I recommend watching the 1997 film. The book is just UGH it's so good, the writing is far more beautiful than I could ever comprehend, and the romantic language is used to juxtapose/contrast the horrid events and his perverse fantasies, which is absolute genius on Nabokov's part. If you really want a complicated book to dissect, go ahead and get a copy!_**

 ** _And yeah, on another note, in case it wasn't obvious or if none of you already knew, I think older men are THE BEST and tbh if nobody was against it, Joker would totally be like 35-40 in this story lmao. But alas, a lotta people aren't into it, so whatever! I support ur romantic endeavours or whatever ur type is, even if ur type is none at all! And people have also asked (on Wattpad), like, "woah, Junie's way young to be a psychiatrist, did she like, skip a grade?" and my answer is just like, well, age gap. When I originally planned it out she was still only about 25ish, but the more I planned her past (which will play a part, along with Joker's), the more I realised that I had to get the time and age correct, so I had to lower it down to just 22._**

 ** _Anyways, enough about that. I wanted to know what you think about this chapter! The first few drafts I absolutely detested, buuut once the playing cards were out it kinda grew on me. I hope my writing isn't that confusing (I know I can get carried away with prose and feelings and just with Joker in general... I have never had so much fun writing a character before, especially since his POV is a first for me) but basically at this point he's kinda realising that he's getting bored with poor Junie and wants a new toy to play with. Y'know. As evident by the murder fantasies._**

 ** _Love you all!_**

 ** _-tkj_**


	9. Chapter 8: Bittersweet

_**Ahh! I'm so sorry that this is uploading so late- but by now pretty much all my chapters are taking a while so I sincerely apologise- I just can't bring myself to upload chapters that aren't to my best standard, y'know? I hope you understand! I also tend to publish these chapters much earlier on Wattpad so if you've got an account and you'd like to read it on there... my username is exactly the same!**_

 _ **But anyway, BOY this is a chapter. Like, probably the whole reason I started to write this story in the first place because of the concept... wow! I'm so hyped to share with you! Enjoy and thanks for being so patient!**_

* * *

 **Chapter 8: Bittersweet**

He was quite into bondage if he had to admit, although he usually liked it when it was _him_ tying the knots and not the one being bound underneath them. Of course, straightjackets never hurt anybody, but on the other hand, they never helped him sleep either. The tightness around his arms and waist was just so deliciously uncomfortable that he always felt too excited to sleep and he'd stay up for hours, most times all night, the days melting into the nights and the nights melting into the days. It was Junie that helped him count the time. It was Junie who had that calendar in that little black pocket planner of hers and it was Junie that he... wanted... to kill.

Maybe it wasn't the straightjacket that made him uncomfortable at night. Maybe it was _her_.

Her sickly sweet smiles, her delicate hands- _pill box, pill box, darling little pill box_ \- her big rounded Bambi eyes and her hair. Her hair. Her hair, always her hair. Long curls and black and silky and still he could feel it between his fingers, even now, when they were restrained by his sides in bed. He'd contemplated her for a while now. He wanted to kill her, yes, but why? He'd never really needed a reason before, just let the hand of fate choose and shoot, but for Junie he'd make it _mean_ something. After all, the deck of cards she'd given him were more fun than he would've expected, so he had her to thank for that. Of course, having to smuggle them back in his pants wasn't the most dignifying thing he'd been subjected to, but in the hours where he got to sit around his cell without the straightjacket was made much more blissful when he could play a game of solitaire to pass the time. Her kindness was valuable.

But the point was, Joker's death wish toward Junie wasn't a fantasy incited by karma or revenge, wasn't an imaginary plot that would lead to something greater, no. He wanted to kill her to prove that even being kind and caring and sympathetic wouldn't cease something so unstoppable and chaotic as him. _Killing 'em with kindness never works, Junie. You gotta kill 'em with a knife. Or a mallet. Or burn it all down..._

Then the image of his hands around her neck shone a certain light upon his imaginations and eyes closed, he silently groaned. Thumbs popping her oesophagus shut so nothing would be heard of her but the silent croaks crawling up her little throat with that betrayed look on her face, those wide eyes of hers that he'd give anything to see brim with the swelling of tears, bloodshot, face blue, she'd be looking at him the whole time. Painted lips slowly parting into an enamoured circle, he moaned at the thought, genuinely _moaned_ and it slowly stretched into a sickening and perverse grin that hurt his face enough to have him exhale through a long and low whistle.

Fantasy material that he would finally get to realise during tomorrow's session.

* * *

In the doorway of Dr. Arkham's office the next morning, tremulous Juniper Stoltz stood in a stiff stick-like position, almost afraid to set foot on the crimson carpet he'd summoned her to. "Dr. Arkham? You asked to see me?"

The girl didn't even have to fully walk in to be noticed, Dr. Arkham dreadfully acknowledged, what with her ridiculous hair taking up the entire doorway (although that was quite hyperbolic). Still, he hated it. So much in fact he'd almost forgotten why he'd called her to his office in the first place.

The whiskey bottle in his drawer called to him and he had to grind his teeth to try and ignore it. Motioning to the seat before him with a bony and wrinkled hand, he falsely smiled, the sarcasm completely obvious to June, who was now finally present in his office. "Take a seat, Miss Stoltz. I have some... things I would like to discuss with you."

She froze in her steps, her thoughts spinning in her head like a fortune wheel, the arrow just ticking and waiting to land on the worst possible scenario. The art therapy results, doctor transfers, the playing cards... _oh God, please don't let it be the playing cards_. She'd be fired. She'd never get to see the Joker again if they found out about the playing cards.

"Miss Stoltz? I said, sit."

"Sorry, sorry," she whimsically apologised, almost tripping over as she crossed to the chair opposite his desk and sat in it, handbag on her lap. She was so sure that she was going to vomit out of pure nervousness alone. No matter how stubborn she was to get this job in the beginning, something about finally earning it and knowing that he was watching her every move terrified her. That, and he hated her for simply, _y'know, existing._

"Now," Dr. Arkham began, adjusting his tiny glasses on the bridge of his obscenely large, sharp nose, "I called you in this morning to say-" He lost track of his words when he spotted the slightly reddish tint of her lips, where he swore they were usually a dull brown. "That isn't lipstick, is it?"

Gripping her bag, she blurted, "No."

There was an awkward silence, followed by the trembling of June's hands. The lipstick wasn't _that_ obvious, was it?

His eyes had become short grey slits to which he judged her through, but he raised his brows in dismissal. "No matter. That isn't important. What is important is what I called you to talk about."

June's entire mouth turned into a sour drought as she anticipated the worst, waiting for him to just end her career right there.

"It's about your, um... patient. And the therapy it has been subjected to."

That word again. _It_. She'd always hated it, it had that connotation that the Joker was somehow less human and less deserving of that same respect other people had; sure, he murdered, maimed and tortured for his own entertainment, but June could never reason with the assumption that treating him badly would somehow cure him. It never added up. Still, she wouldn't question it- Dr. Arkham was a cruel figure and he revelled in nothing less than seeing her speak out against him, to try and catch her out. At least, it felt that way...

She straightened her back, "W-what- what things did you want to talk ab-"

"I won't be vague or cryptic with you, Miss Stoltz," Dr. Arkham interrupted with a spiteful grin. "I see no progress being made on this case. I have yet to see any results from your patient."

"Results? I've- I've set him up to art therapy and he's doing really well," she insisted, her frown slowly bending into a sad smile. "You should see the painting's he's done, Dr. Arkham. They're fantastic, really, he has such unexpected talent-"

"Tell me- what relevance do paintings have to its mental health?"

Deliriously, she could've laughed. " _Art_ , Dr. Arkham. He made art! Art... y'know... _frees_ people. His ability to paint like that, to create such order in the chaos he feels, it's a miracle. To have him even sit still while holding a paintbrush is a miracle. Really, if I could just show you his work-"

His bony fingers knotted together upon the table. "Well, Miss Stoltz, after you told me about the session, I had a... word with one of the guards. Colter, I believe." At the name, June's stomach turned. "And I asked him very kindly to dispose of the paintings. They're long gone now, Miss Stoltz."

Mouth dropping open, her words refused to come out. Let it be known, June was in shock. Not just surprised but horrified, afraid, she felt as though the paintings were herself- torn apart and destroyed. Like a piece of her was now missing, those oil canvases filled with triangles and shapes and that little hidden hand grenade in the bowl of fruit seemingly filled a void in her, something that had actually given her hope. If the Joker- agent of chaos, jester of genocide, clown prince of crime- if _he_ could create something so beautiful with a brain so wicked and ugly, then surely the city still had some hope. If he could somehow, deep down, be at least the tiniest bit redeemable, then surely, so was she...

Throat tightening (was she going to cry?), June stammered and stumbled over her words, syllables that she simply couldn't lace together into coherent sounds or words. She felt so hurt, and it was over a bunch of paintings. Who cared, right? Nobody did. Nobody but her, at least. Those paintings were proof, hard and physical proof that there was some kind of rational good in him. He was curable. He was human. So why could nobody see it? Why was she the only one who was convinced?

"Dr. Arkham, those paintings-" She stopped herself when she realised her voice was shaking. Fascinated, he smiled widely and glared at her as if to dare her to keep talking. As if to get her to spill everything she felt, thought or even imagined was possible about the mad dog she was uselessly treating. Imagine that, after all that begging in his office, if he'd finally catch her admitting that what she felt for her patient wasn't contempt, but compassion...

"Miss Stoltz," He didn't hold back his smile as he leaned forward. "Those paintings stand as proof that 4479 is dangerous. If it is as free-thinking as those paintings suggest it is, then it is a force we shouldn't be meddling with. Free will is a powerful thing, Miss Stoltz, and we cannot allow 4479 to grasp its concept. Free will leads to chaos, the only thing it knows or loves." He watched in amusement as the girl before him shrank in her seat, face red and strained from embarrassment and overwhelmed emotion. "If I hear that your patient has ever produced another painting under your guise of 'therapy', then I'll feel no displeasure in taking away your position as its doctor."

With her hands gripping the chair's arms, she half jumped out of her seat in sheer panic. _No. No. No. No_. He couldn't do that. He couldn't take her away from him, it had been her dream to work in the position she was. Jesus, the dumb clown was the highlight of her every day. What intelligent conversations they'd had! The things she'd heard come out of his mouth, it illustrated exactly what was wrong with this screwed up system she was caught in. The paintings! Like she'd lost a _child!_ The rec room television, never again would she see him watch it, never again would she see his eyes light up at the sight of silence coming out of an actor's moving mouth. And the apples... they'd let every single one rot before he got to taste one so sweet...

Dr. Arkham's brows raised to the ceiling and he laughed. He actually laughed for what felt like the first time in years, to see this poor and pathetic girl struggling to compose herself. He was surrounded by animals, circus freaks! And she was the main attraction! "Now, now, sit down, Miss Stoltz."

"If you're going to disrespect me in such a blatant way, at least have the damned decency to call me by my name. _Don't_ patronise me, _Jeremiah_." Teeth grit and jaw tensed, her clenched knuckles trembled as she forced herself to sit back down, which almost hurt. "You can't take me off his case. No one is helping him. You think I'd be content to just sit idly by and watch him die?" She asked rhetorically, her eyes full of sympathy and empathy- both at once, all at once; he rolled his eyes with a sick smile as she persisted. "He's not treated well. Colter comes by his cell and beats him and I haven't heard you object, not once."

"These things take time, Miss S-"

"And he spent six months down in extreme isolation suffering surely no less than he does when he's in his own cell up here and you just-"

"What was that you said? About extreme isolation?"

Frustrated, but burnt out, June had to pause for breath, and then her confused eyes focused vaguely on his almost scared expression. The sudden snap of his voice, stiff and hoarse, had startled her into her own bout of abject silence. Amongst the chaotic and panicked worries in her head, she wasn't so sure she'd heard what he'd said.

Somehow, she managed to emit a coherent mutter in the form of a timid, "What?"

His tone had lost all apathy and disinterest and was instead replaced with a volatile animosity, carving words into the backs of his teeth when he spat, "Extreme isolation. What do you know about it, Miss Stoltz?"

She knew that the facility beneath Arkham was... private, to say, but she'd never heard this kind of hostility from anyone before and this was just by _mentioning_ it. "I don't-"

"Tell me!"

She jumped in fear and tried not to swear. "Chr- not much, just that he told me it's, um... um... not what it's cracked up to be- or something- listen, I don't know, I swear, I-"

"Get out of my office."

Confused, June's mouth snapped shut and even though she went to speak, no words really felt like they were any use in coming out.

"Get _out_ of my office," Dr. Arkham repeated, voice slow as if she were stupid. Then he screamed, "And tie that damn hair up!"

June yelped with a leap of her shoulders and as slowly as she could, she grabbed her bag and rose out of her seat, her entire figure tense as her footsteps sped up along the carpet and to the door. She turned her head back for a moment to see if he'd say anything else, but he was sweating, hands scrambling for his bottle of whiskey and glass as he placed them on the desk. She just didn't know what she'd done wrong. What had she said? Did she say something out of place?

"Dr. Ark-"

"Get out!" His voice cracked with a poisonous growl, and as his bubble angered within him, he grabbed his whiskey glass and slammed it so hard onto his desk that it smashed, glass shards piercing his hand.

June immediately dropped her bag and bolted back over, one of her shoes slipping off in the rushed process. "Oh my God," she sputtered, taking off her labcoat at the sight of his bloodied hand. "Here," she insisted as she folded her coat and reached out to take his hand. "Let me help-"

Dr. Arkham thrust his arm back and stepped out from his seat, knocking it to the floor. With fire in his eyes, he screamed, "Don't touch me, filthy brat!"

June swallowed hard; his words stung like salt in an open wound. Filthy, dirty, unclean: she had been called such things before. Yet when it was from her own boss, she felt powerless to bite back, to defend herself. She didn't feel dishonoured, or like he'd wounded her reputation, she just felt like she was witnessing him at his basest, most primitive state, and that embarrassed her. He looked stupid, ridiculous, like a child backing away when their mother had said 'bath time', and the fact that her job was to just stand there and take it was humiliating.

"I'm- I'm sorry, sir, I was just..." June looked down to the folded coat in her hands as if she didn't remember how it even got there, and realised that despite her hatred towards him, even when in danger herself, she put out a hand to help. She felt stupid for _that,_ knowing very well that he probably didn't deserve it.

"Get out of my office, or you're _fired_." He finally said.

She bit her tongue in disgust- God, now she knew how the Joker could be driven to murder- and was defenceless to do anything but turn back around, collect her fallen shoe and her bag, and walk out of the door without a word.

When she was outside, there was Just Kenny waiting for her, ready to escort her to the Joker's cell per Dr. Arkham's request. He eyed June very strangely, with her silky hair dishevelled and in her eyes, her one shoe in her hand, her coat now scrunched in her arms. When Dr. Arkham had said he'd wanted a 'talk' with Dr. Stoltz, this wasn't exactly what Kenny had in mind... the thought was more than repulsive.

She let out a dreaded, practically humourless laugh at how the situation seemed. "It's... not what it looks like."

"Uh-huh..." Just Kenny nodded, waiting for Dr. Stoltz to tidy herself up before taking her to the Joker's cell, where they would then take him to the interviewing room. Oh, she did favour routine when someone as chaotic as the Joker was involved... and holding her breath, she pushed forward a smile.

Jeremiah Arkham waited. He held his bleeding hand by the wrist, standing by the closed doors until he heard nothing but silence, the sign of that brat of a girl finally gone. Extreme isolation. She knew about extreme isolation. Given, she said she only knew that it 'wasn't what it was cracked up to be', but still, that disgusting clown's mouth could run a lot when it wanted to. She would start asking questions, start poking her nose where it didn't belong. There had to be a way to get rid of her before she could find anything out, or before that clown started to talk. She seemed to be... quite close with it, now that he thought about it...

Wincing in pain, Dr. Arkham pinched out squares of glass from his hand and fell forwards toward his desk, unharmed hand snatching up the telephone. He punched in the speed-dial number for the front office and waited as patiently as a bleeding man could, each tone ringing seemingly longer than the last.

It was frail Jeanette who replied with a croaked, "Oh, Dr. Arkham! My, you've-"

"Put that girl on the phone." He impatiently demanded, referring to the one who worked with Jeanette. He couldn't quite recall the name.

"Girl? What girl?"

"The one in your office, the pale one. The one who talks to that... that stupi- that girl, June."

"June?" Jeanette whispered to herself, almost forgetting the name at her age. "Oh, you mean Dr. Stoltz, the young girl! Why, sorry, she's not at the office right now-"

His bloodied fist came slamming down on the desk. "No, I don't want _her_ , I want-!" He took a deep breath and sighed, patience returning to him. "I want to talk to the girl in your office who _knows_ Dr. Stoltz. Mary, or- or Margaret, whatever her name-"

"Oh!" She laughed, "You mean Mara!"

" _Yes_!" He cried in relief, looking up to the heavens, "Yes, her! Put her on the phone, Jeanette, and fast."

"Of course, I'll only be a minute."

There was a commotion, followed by Jeanette's weak voice calling across the office, and then the crackling of the phone as it was handed to Mara.

"Hello?" Mara's voice wasn't as sweet as he'd expected it to be, instead it had a coarse undertone to it. Like salt.

"Mara, yes, hello. You're friends with Miss Stoltz, aren't you?" He asked.

"Yes, I am, sir. Why do you ask?"

"I would like you to do a favour for me. She's been acting strangely..." He toyed with the telephone wire around his finger. "...suspicious as of late. Oddly defensive."

"Defensive, sir?"

"Of her patient."

"Oh. The Joker?"

"Yes. I would like you to see if she has anything that would suggest... how should I say... a camaraderie with her patient. If she seems to act in any way that would point toward them being friends."

"Friends, sir? I think that's quite imposs-" Mara paused, but after a couple of second's silence she spoke again, "Well... there was that day in her office. Before the art session with the Joker. She seemed quite defensive then."

A wide smile spread across Dr. Arkham's lips and he bent down to pick his chair back up, sitting in it. Legs crossed one over the other, he leaned his elbows over onto the desk. "Yes, exactly that. Please, tell me more about that. Oh, and while you're there..." He grabbed his whiskey bottle. "Ask Jeanette to send over a nurse for me."

"Yes, of course, Dr. Arkham, but about June- I don't think I could tell you- I mean, she's my friend-"

"Is she your friend if I offer to double your salary?"

The line went quiet. Dr. Arkham's bloody hand trembled and a thin bead of sweat coursed its way down his naked brow, chest scratchy with nervous breaths.

Mara sighed heavily, a sign of defeat that he recognised immediately. "So... I was in her office, before her session with the Joker..."

He smiled. Dr. Jeremiah Arkham had never felt so...

* * *

 _Happy_. Despite the outburst in Dr. Arkham's office, June was happy. She sat there in her familiar chair opposite the Joker's, twiddling her pen between her fingers and watching him as he mindlessly spoke through mumbled words, lips barely moving. She'd unknowingly let him take the reigns of the conversation, how at the beginning of the hour they'd said _hello_ , then _how are you feeling_ , then Joker said, _I miss the TV set,_ and now he was talking about how the film industry had cheated in making their movies non-silent, how dialogue and forced exposition had made it easy to make what he scoffed at was their idea of 'art'. It was funny, June had never realised he could be so pretentious and passionate about such a silly thing until now. She usually hated it when people complained about things that, in the grand scheme of things, didn't even matter, but somehow coming out of the Joker's mouth, he made it sound like a speech as he weighed out the pros and cons, talking about everything as though by speaking the words he delivered justice to them. How well-mannered he spoke, how honest. How civilised and intelligent! Her stomach twirled in ignorant delight.

" _And_ , while I _will_ admit that dialogue, to, uh, to _some_ degree _has_ improved the movie industry by, like, uh, a _teeny tiny_ bit- you _ever_ watched Pulp Fiction?"

"Uh-huh." Came a dreamy nod from June.

"Then you _know_ how well dialogue can be put to use. Bu- _t_ , apart from films like _that_ \- pfft-" He threw his hands up into the air as if the world around him had gone mad. "- _di_ alogue in movies has _op_ ened the gateway for _lazy_ storytellers to just _get_ their point across and call it a _day_. Where's the fun in _that_ , huh? You don't _kill_ a person by _talk_ ing to them! You shut your mouth and stick a _knife_ int'a their _gut_! Getting _straight_ to the poin- _t_. What is _so hard_ about doing that, huh? But oh _no_!" He mockingly whined, pulling a funny face. "Directors like M. Night, uh, Shamrock or whatever makes one _craaazy_ plot twist and suddenly he's allowed to make all _kinds_ 'a _gar_ bage! And as long as his name is stamped on it, then it's a _masterpiece_! I'm tellin' ya, Junie, the world's going _nuts_ , lemme just- _oh_!" He seemed to shout in offence and June jumped a little. "And _another_ thing! _One_ -liners! I _hate_ those. The hell _are_ they anyway? I mean, ' _yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker_ '? Uh, pardon my _French_. But yeah, great storytelling, _idiot_ , well _done_. What a _well_ -rounded character you've made, hurrah, _hurrah_." Joker sarcastically clapped and then held up a finger to count, "Okay, _first_ of all, as cool as that guy _was_ in that movie, I don't think that, uh, ' _yippee-ki-yay_ ' was a good _way_ to pre _sent_ tha- _t_. I mean, just _think_ about it, one guy..."

June laughed, a schoolgirl giggle that made her eyes tear up, and the longer she looked at him, the more distant his voice became and the more apparent and focused his appearance was. The lighting of the room never really showed his best side, starkly illuminated from above and cast grim shadows below, dragging down the bags under his eyes and making him look scarier than he already was. But despite this, it never unsettled June, only fascinated her instead. What really unsettled her was the fact that she wasn't afraid, wasn't scared at all. Swinging his hands around wildly like this, getting so heated and yet she didn't flinch nor wince nor anything. She just watched, enamoured, chin in her hands to conceal the smile on her lips.

"So a'right, _granted_ , when he said it the first time, it _was_ pretty cool. And the way he like, uh, like backs outt'a the door's _sorta_ badass, but then they made a _second_ movie. And a third. And now there's four and he said the same _dumb_ one-liner _every_ time. It's _dumb_ , Junie, _so_ dumb. Like, uh, like that _Ter_ minator guy, the-" Joker cleared his throat and made his voice monotonous to nail the impression. "-'I'll be back'. See, it was _good_ , and then he said it like a _million_ times. What's with _that_ , huh?"

June was barely listening. "Crazy."

" _Right_? And another thing..."

His voice faded out again to the back of her vacant mind, filled instead with moving pictures of his mouth, his lips and teeth and tongue as it recited numerous one-liners he hated (but deep down, supposed he kinda liked, now that he thought about it). Each time he mumbled, his lips almost closed entirely, and a glimpse of his pale pink tongue darted out out against his bottom lip after each 'uh', 'ah', or 'um' or every time he checked her for a reaction, to which she'd always agree with a nod even though she wasn't listening. And his yellowed teeth- much cleaner than they looked on TV a year ago, with the rigorous and routined scrubbing the guards forced upon him- nibbled on the corner of his mouth every so often when he shook his head in disappointment toward the 'totally screwed film industry, can you even believe it'. How Juniper wished she could lose herself on the back of his tongue... dance around in his mouth and cling to the wet walls as he laughed, just to know what they felt like. _What they'd taste like..._

" _Ju_ nie?"

"Yeah, I totally agree."

"Junie."

"Hm?" She blinked for what felt like the first time in hours, her eyes dry from admiring him so wide-eyed. _Crap, not admiring, just_ -

"What're you _look_ ing at, huh? I got something on my _face_?" Joker consciously raised a hand to his mouth.

June sat herself upright and put her pen down, shaking her head with an inward breath. God, she felt so silly, just letting herself daydream like that. She forgot that he was her patient, for Christ's sakes, not some high-school crush. Not that she was into him like _that_ \- although he was handsome, to a sickening degree- but even her sacred audio diary didn't know about that. A subconscious thing, perhaps; after all, the human mind worked in such mysterious ways...

"Sorry, it's nothing," She apologised, "Just tired is all." She nodded her head so hard in trying to persuade him that she almost believed it herself. "Didn't sleep much."

"Ag _ain_?" He smirked, figure finally relaxing after his twenty minute debate.

"Yeah." She laughed.

"Why _not_?"

 _Because I was thinking of you and your paintings and your magic tricks and what you see in the TV static._

"Watching the late night movies." She innocently lied.

Joker hummed as if to pretend he was actually interested. "Oh. Whadd'ya _watch_?"

She looked at his paint-plastered face and blurted out the first movie that she could think of. "Uh, It."

"It? _Oh_ , you mean Steven King's It? The, uh, the one with the killer _clown_?"

 _Oh God, you idiot_. "Uh, yeah." _Yeah, totally not gonna puke my guts up right now._

"Huh," He broke out into an amused grin. "Seems to me like you've got a _type_ , Junie."

She could've slammed her head on the desk in embarrassment of her own stupidity. Jesus, he even thought she had a type, why did she pick a goddamn clown over all things? She couldn't believe-

" _Hor_ ror movies." He said in response to her flushed face.

"Huh?"

The Joker grinned. He did it. He found a way. He found a way to get under Junie's skin. Just like the playing card behind her ear, it wasn't threats that made her nervous, or even talking about murder, but playing. Toying. Flirting. The power dynamic was about to screw her over.

"Your _type_. _Hor_ ror movies. You, uh, you _said_ you were watching one the other _night_ , weren't you?" He asked, brows knitted together rather pensively as he leaned on the table. "D'ya _like_ things that _scare_ you, Junie?"

Sheepishly, her nervous frown raised into a smile as her voice broke. "Ha, seems I do- hah..." The words spilled out non-stop as she played frantically with her hair, trying to get out of this mess only to dig herself deeper. Deeper, deeper. Digging a grave right to her own heart, tunnels he'd use to traverse so he can crush it.

But this... this he _loved_. He liked her squeamishness so much that it took every inch of him not to climb onto the table, cling his fingers around her throat and _squeeze_ \- squeeze her like a tiny mound of bloodied flesh!- anchor his nails into her neck until she cried, until she died, until he could press her into little stars in his hands, between his fingers, he _lived_ for this! He lived for the chaos he could practically _see_ oiling the rotten cogs in her head! Junie was the first person still _alive_ who could make him feel so entertained by just the mere sound of her voice! It was hilariously laughable when rational, sane people were scared by the premise that they wanted to squash and hold and choke things that they found cute, like kittens, but now the Joker had found his own amalgamation of that concept: and it came in the form of Junie- freckled- face- and- curly- haired- Stoltz. She wasn't cute in the way average people would find, but funny, like a laughing parade on legs, and he loved the idea of her discomfort and eventual surrender so much that he wished she had nine lives so he could kill her over and over and over again, just to see if she'd smile when he tried to dig his hand down her neck to try and pull her heart out. Turn her inside out so he could see inside her head and body and lungs and ribs and heart and bones. He sure as hell didn't need to paint her portrait to see that in a disgustingly twisted way, she was, in some form, a work of art. Perhaps his finest masterpiece.

"Suppose," she filled the silence, "I just like going to bed after a horror flick and the adrenaline rush of things going bump in the night... or..." she shyly blinked. "Something... else..."

He smiled. " _Bump_ in the _night_ , huh?" He repeated her words, readjusting himself in his chair. "Ya _like_ things that go _bump_ in the night, Junie?"

She feigned laughter with a frantic nod.

"What _kinda_ bumps, Junie?" Joker tilted his head compulsively, mimicking her curiosity. " _Foot_ steps down the hallway? A _knock_ ing from your _closet_?" He slowly inched forward, arms on the table, and locked eyes with his trembling Junie as he whispered so quietly that the perpetual buzz of the light above them was louder than he was, and so terrifyingly, he said, "... _head_ board hitting against the _wall_?"

June swallowed dryly, heavy breaths swimming from slightly parted lips as she looked down to the Joker's right hand, paint covered and bruised. Following her gaze, he knew where it lead to. Where it always lead to. Mimicking the sound he'd described to her, he brought his index finger up and tapped it back down on the table in a rhythmic pattern, _thump, thump, thump_. Slow, soft... reminiscent of that apple falling onto the table ( _rolling_ ) and with each breath that left her quivering chest the thumping of his fingertip quickened, just a tiny bit, barely enough for her to even notice until it caught up with the rapid beating of her heart. She looked up at him only to see that he was looking back, too. Black empty holes into his soul... holes... soul... his memories... she wanted to see them so _badly_...

June spoke through lips that almost closed, afraid of what she might say if they opened. "Usually... the bump in the night that scares me most is..." _Thump, thump_. "...is the fear of monsters hiding under the bed."

" _Real_ ly?" The Joker softly mused, smiling as he drew his finger closer to her, gliding along the surface of the table as smoothly as it would slice through water. "And what a _bout_..." His voice was deep, low, "...the _mon_ sters... _in_ the bed, Junie?"

If she wasn't so preoccupied by how smooth and endearing he was, she would've laughed. Gripped her stomach, doubled over, lost her mind and drowned in hysteria. But all she could do was stare, look endlessly in his eyes while she unknowingly leaned in closer, yearning for that one index finger that slithered near to touch her, even if just for a second, just a poke. Just to remind her that he was there and very much real and so was she. Lost in her own head, she wandered helplessly, searching for those stolen fragments of her own sanity. Had he stolen it? Her morality? The angel sitting on her right shoulder telling her _no_ , had he killed it? What had he done to her? Where was Dr. Stoltz? _Ring ring, ring ring. Sorry, she's not at the office right now..._

Joker's finger prodded her forearm and among the silent insanity raging in June's mind, she let go of a stuttered laugh she didn't even know she was repressing until it was plucked out of her mouth, strung up in the air like mistletoe, the space between them inevitably growing smaller and smaller by the second. She looked up at him with those precious doe eyes as if there were holy scriptures written in his own. Memories. There were memories hidden just on the other side of those eyes of his. To deny wanting to see each and every single one would be a crude lie. After all this- wait, were their noses touching? He's not even sat down anymore- after all the talks of movies and paintings and his restless hands and everything else, it just wasn't enough. She wanted to know why he liked movies so much, why his hands fidgeted without his knives and when in time he seemingly met Picasso because by _God_ he managed to paint just as well. She needed an explanation, wanted one so badly. She needed to find out what the world had done to him to make him the way he was. June craved it. She was hungry, so hungry it was overwhelming, engulfing, stomach-tossing-ly starving and his mind and memories were a bountiful banquet for her to consume. So maybe... maybe just a peek... if only back to just about a year ago... it wouldn't hurt that much, he wouldn't feel a thing...

Eventually, she rose from her seat, palms pressed against the table, and the two seemed to gravitate toward one another. There was this tension between them, hot and raw, the lion stalking circles around the curious gazelle. Too curious for her own good, as always. _Junie, don't ever change_. Especially not now. _Now_... now he could actually get a good grip on her throat, now that he thought about it...

She wanted to strip apart his memories. He wanted to murder her. And yet the two hid it all under the guise of secret sexual tension and skirting around a kiss that would never come. Neither of them knew each other's intentions. Neither of them cared. But one thing they both did agree upon was scoffing at the idea of how stupid the other was, to fall so easily under the false promise of a kiss...

 _Just a peek..._

And his eyes were there. She didn't blink when she looked at his eyes; then, looked _into_ them, looked _inside_ of them, slowly trying to make apart the pupils from the irises, both as dark as each other. She wanted to pry them open, to look through them, the windows to his tar black soul.

He stayed still. He concentrated on her, thinking of when the perfect moment was to strike.

June could do it. She knew she could do it. She could look into his memories like she'd wanted for weeks and so long as he stayed exactly where he was, she could do it. Finally, she decided. Agreed upon. What good did morality do when it was so much easier to just take what she wanted? Temptation was right in front of her (the apple rolling, red and sweet and bright and its name is the Joker). She could know who he was. What he was.

So Juniper did it.

She searched through his pupils to find that invisible gateway exit at the back, and she looked into him. Most terrifying of all, she wasn't sure what was going to look back.

A silent gasp, an unfeeling struck blow, the all-too familiar feeling of piercing someone's mind.

She was there. She'd done it. She'd broken into the unbreakable psyche of the world's most broken mind. The memories were there. All that was left was the choosing.

First came the sensory part: his life in bulk, something she couldn't see, only feel. It felt chaotic, extremely chaotic and... somehow lack-luster. Like... something was missing. She wasn't quite sure what, but...

Presently, Joker flinched at a strange, momentary migraine he'd just felt. His Junie looked so mesmerised. Vulnerable. He'd strike now but... _kill her, kill her, do it, do it!_

His memories... a corridor of knowledge, containing the secrets of the world's biggest mystery. The forgotten library of Alexandria, where nobody could ever venture. And there she was. She toyed with it a little, to see if her powers worked as smoothly as they used to: the most recent memory that played out was of about twenty-four hours ago, and he was looking at a floor surrounded by playing cards. She recognised this, the magic trick yesterday. June had seen the world through the eyes of so many different people but it was his that stood out the most, now that she could finally see what it looked like. Everything looked so different through his eyes, so colourful. The dull walls of the interviewing room held this nuanced vibrance to them, a luminosity that didn't truly exist (who knew, maybe it was just the pills). It was strange, the memory felt so rushed, so blurred, his gaze flitting from one side of the room to the other as he collected the cards on the floor one by one... and then there was an ankle. Two small feet dressed in nylon tights and situated in black kitten heels... _her_ kitten heels... her ankles. June was looking at _herself_ through _his_ eyes, and when he looked up, there she was, stood and resting over the table and collecting all the playing cards together that he'd teasingly tossed her way just minutes before. She looked so... different in his memory. Not physically, but just the overall aura of her was different than who she perceived herself to be. She could feel his thoughts- not quite read them, it didn't work like that- but she could _feel_ them as if she were in his body, could feel his mouth twitch and eyes move... and suddenly the mood darkened. He was looking at June, or Junie, rather, and when at first it felt like admiration (she had the sense that he practically worshipped her hair) it suddenly turned into... bloodlust. He was looking at Junie's ankles and she could feel exactly what he was thinking- pull them out from under her feet and kill her. _Kill her_! Jaw split open on the table, teeth in skull. In that moment, when she was happily collecting cards, he was thinking about murdering her right then and there! Completely unbeknownst to her and... oh God...

Leaving the memory from sheer panic alone, present June blinked hard in shock. She didn't dare flinch. Never... never had she thought that his mind could feel so dark, could think such gruesome and awful, _awful_ things in such a mundane situation... but inevitably came the sad realisation that despite what she thought of him being somehow rational, or well-thinking, or even man at all; he was still the Joker. The man who murdered half the mob and blew up a hospital alongside many other detestable things. No fine line he walked between whatever moral stance was ever spotless, any line between any argument was always paved with bodies and polished with blood. Yesterday, at that very second of looking at her ankles, he wanted to kill her. That was what his memories felt like- fetishistic murder. And yet, right now, with his heavy breaths on her face, her fingers just barely touching his atop the table, she couldn't find it in herself to feel scared, or to even hate him. She just felt confused. Hurt and confused.

And as human nature goes, at its very core, she wanted to pull apart what she didn't understand. Dissect it to find out _why_.

Staring back through his presently vacantly eyes, June forced herself through his memories of yesterday and the day before, squeezing her way through last week and pushing relentlessly until the whole month of his memories were behind her, not of any interest anymore. She didn't stop, couldn't care. No, June didn't care at all anymore. Doctor? She wasn't a doctor. She was human. The Joker? A threat. He wanted to use her, kill her, so she was going to get there before he could. Go back to the day he became the Joker and use his own precious memory as a weapon against him. Split him open. Pry apart his goddamned brain and leave a hand grenade in it.

As she rifled through memories of months that had been lost to padded cells and electrotherapy, Joker's present grip on the table suddenly slipped as he hesitantly pressed a hand against his forehead, eyes glassy as he looked at Junie with uncertainty. Migraines? They became more than just migraines.

" _Ju_ nie," Joker hummed, shaking his head slowly, "While I, uh, do _love_ the tension, we're going a _li_ -ttle _slow_ here, don'tcha think? What's all this _staring_ for, huh?" His voice was hazy, trying to cover up the unexplainable pain that suddenly struck his head. June felt it too- it physically hurt to look through people's memories- but so soon? She never felt the migraines until she was at least a decade deep, and here she was hardly a year ago in his head. Something wasn't right...

Through raspy breaths, June saw nothing but a mangled scrapbook of memories, but whispered in hopes of keeping him still. "Your eyes are so dark..."

" _You're_ one to tal-" Joker's eyes scrunched shut in pain- _shit, the memories are wavering_ \- and he stood upright, groping his head as he laughed it off. "Nice- uh, _nice_ one, Junie. You been mixing my _meds_ , or-" His voice was cut off as he reeled forwards, back arching as he held his head in agony, June desperately moving to keep eye contact with him. Joker grit his teeth, swearing as the violent migraines bloomed within his head, shaking his synapses to the point where memories from a year ago spilled out for her to see.

She saw the bank robberies, the school buses, unlisted murders that never made the news; she whimpered quietly in trying to contain all of the hurt as she flicked through glossy images of him sorting through hundreds of playing cards to find the sacred jokers, him planning out an idea of a suit he wanted, fitting a knife to an old pair of dress shoes, him counting every gun, blade and explosive he owned that were laid out in rows ranging from smallest to largest on a crappy motel room floor. June saw _everything_. The man who still had the paint, but not the name. And every single bit of it _hurt_.

She would've stopped were this anybody else, anybody mundane. They had nothing more interesting to offer other than what meals they ate on a Saturday night. But this was the Joker, the murderer she watched a year ago on live TV with anticipated grins and hoping she could have a go at deducing his psyche. His memories weren't something she could just pass up. She kept on going, falling forward against the table, fists clenched so hard that the pen in her hand had snapped in two. The Joker was caught in the middle, in pain and confusion. It all looked so pathetic: the two of them moaning and grunting in seething, boiling agony, throwing themselves over the table in trying to make it bearable.

Joker slammed his hands down on the table and hooked his fingers upon the surface, snarling in pain whilst somehow still smiling, such a disturbing image to see beyond the memories she rewound through. He dug his nails against the table as he twisted his neck to look at her- his palpitating _monster_ , more like- then shook his head with a pained laugh. It was perhaps in this moment that he realised something wasn't right with Junie Stoltz. She wasn't mad, but there was something dark in her, something scarred and scorched, her head full of secrets that only she knew of. For a second he didn't even believe she was human. He had no idea what exactly she was doing to him, but he knew that every twinge of pain he felt was _her_. It was all her. Finally, he'd found a kindred spirit within her, someone selfish who took and took and took just because she _could_. For all he knew, she was killing him, bringing his brain to the brink of bursting. And they'd already dove too far down the rabbit hole to climb back out now.

June was so close to giving up, so close to surrendering to the pain, letting go to let them both breathe, but then she saw something. Multiple things, actually, glimpses of memories that occurred between... black spots of... emptiness. About... two and a half years ago... she could hear the looping tune of a merry carnival song, along with screams of pain- _his_ screams of pain, she'd never thought she'd live to see the day- and flashes of a brown-haired, painted Joker, blood drooling from his mouth. A million black eyes and a million bloodied smiles as he stared at himself through a hundred broken shards. Too much blood for her to see anything but bulging teeth and eyes.

June's entire body tensed and convulsed- everything happened at once. A glinting blade, a hand guiding it into his mouth, his screams of death, a revolver chamber with a single bullet, a dead theme park laying around him, a lone man walking along a red lined path on an amusement park brochure map.

Juniper Stoltz had never felt so much pain in her life. Maybe once, maybe when the clairvoyance was still new to her. She could go back to the day someone was born if she really wanted to- _Mama, Mama, forgive me_ \- but three years in the Joker's head and...

Blackness.

He was twenty seven, laid motionless surrounded by glass and his own blood, and then suddenly nothing.

She couldn't go any further. Like she'd hit a wall in his head. There was nothing there, no memories to look at, no sounds, nothing. A void.

June had never encountered this kind of thing before. She'd been able to look a decade back at Colter's rotten life, twenty two years back in Aaron Cash's. Thirty five years in... Mama's. But in the Joker's head, just three years, three short years... and there was nothing. Just an empty space and a million billion neurones all dead with broken synapses.

And then it hit her like a tonne of bricks, a landslide, a great realisation that both saddened her and made her feel sick.

He didn't remember anything. He didn't remember _anything_. Three years ago, there was nothing in his brain that proved he was alive, or even existed at all before the face paint and the scars. No man who lived before the murderer. Twenty-seven years of nothingness. The Joker was no one. Had come from nowhere. Believed in nothing.

The Joker had amnesia.

June unplugged from his empty mind with a choked gasp, stumbling back into her seat and the Joker tipped his head to the sky with a loud moan, the pain suddenly gone.

The trembling girl had seen the way his fists were clenched and she got up from her chair, tripping back on her feet. "O-oh-" Weakly, her heels caught on the handles of her bag, spilling its contents on the floor and she fell down next to it with featherweight carelessness, only staring up at the clown in fear of what he'd do next.

Loosely, the Joker cracked his neck, and then looked down at her, panting heavily and narrow-eyed. " _You_..." His arm rose like air as he pointed a stiff finger at her. " _What_ did you _do_?"

She couldn't answer him. She had nothing to say. What could she tell him? Explain to him that, _oh, don't worry, I only quickly glimpsed through your life to try and uncover your secrets only to find that you're an amnesiac, which, by the way, are you aware of that_? There was nothing she could say that would justify what she did. And what she discovered? That the identity of a man that everybody'd been searching for didn't even exist?

The Joker inched away from the table and made an advance towards her. June crawled back on her palms, breaths fast and whimpered.

"What did you _do_?!" He grunted, prepared to seize a hand around her skinny little neck and hold her up in the air by it.

"I-it's all empty," she whispered.

He paused in his tracks. "What?"

As he was about to demand an answer from her, a string of crimson slowly trickled down from Junie's right nostril and swam around her top lip, all while she stared up at him with those big, round, brown doe eyes. Never looked away.

"You're _bleeding,_ " he mumbled in wonderment.

June raised a hand to her nose and felt the familiar blood on her fingers, dripping down into the webs between them. She looked at her fingers as if she'd never seen them before, but then back at him, like _he_ were the strange one in the room. He'd never seen her so vulnerable and façade-less in his life, no longer did she put on the 'doctor' act to defend herself. This was Junie. Given this chance, he'd strangle her, but he couldn't help but feel curious about her, what she'd done. He pondered about her in the exact way she had about him.

The Joker stepped over to her and crouched down to try and wipe the blood. "Here, lem _me_ -"

"Don't touch me!" She curled up on herself, as if his touch were poison. He lurched back, not in obedience, but of how suddenly she'd burst, how all this time he'd been talking to calm and level-headed Dr. Stoltz, had perhaps just been a fever dream, and now he was face to face with a scared and shaken girl, too fragile to even stand up on her own two feet. She vigorously wiped her nose, only smudging the blood across her upper lip and mouth. And still she bled anyway.

As he looked around at the mess that had spilled from her bag, something caught his eye. Beside a compact mirror and a pack of mangled cigarettes was a small, rectangular device, looking nothing like a phone, instead bearing a small screen and tiny buttons: pause, play, record, and a tiny red light bulb that currently wasn't on. As Junie shut her eyes to steady her breathing, Joker snatched the thing and examined it. It looked like one of those voice recorders the doctors used to use during sessions. Junie, lost in her own circle of confusion and blood, didn't notice as he tucked the recorder into the waistband of his orange trousers like a holster, pulling his shirt down over it afterwards.

Then, as if fate had planned it, the door opened and Junie jolted in fear, not a sound escaping her bloodied lips as in strolled Just Kenny, holding a pair of handcuffs ready to escort the Joker back to his cell.

"Dr. Stoltz, session's up, time to-"

The duo's eyes widened at the same time, and the Joker wanted to smile at himself and Junie- they were like partners in crime. Just Kenny looked at the scene, horrified and confused. He saw the scenario much differently to how it had actually happened. What he saw was that patient 4479 had assaulted Dr. Stoltz, sending her to the floor and giving her a bloody nose.

Joker's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he only thought one thing: _dammit_. _Dammit all to hell._

Just Kenny stuck his head out of the door and called, "Hey, Colter! Colter, get in here, man!"

At the sound of his name, June's stomach churned in dread and she desperately collected her belongings, hoping to make the situation last as short as possible. Joker offered the fallen compact mirror towards her and with a hesitant hand, she snatched it from him, holding it for a second longer than she meant to. She pressed her thumb to the back of it, as if his touch had been printed onto it forever and it was all she could feel. The only act of kindness he'd ever shown.

Colter burst into the room aggressively, looking at Joker and then June, a menacingly exciting spark in his eye. Finally, the freak had snapped. Colter didn't much consider the fact that June seemed to be hurt, only the wonderful idea that she now owed him. He could finally beat the clown until he turned black and blue and now he had a valid excuse for it. How could she ever say no?

Colter didn't even look down at June as he thrust a hand down to help her up, which she denied by trying, but failing, to get up herself. He then turned his neck towards her and grabbed her wrist, yanking her up brutishly as she clutched onto her handbag.

"Go on, Junie," Colter mused, eyes glued delightedly to the Joker. "Session's up."

There was an ominous tension lingering in the air and June didn't like it. Afraid, she whimpered, "Colter... what're you going to do to him...?"

"Nothin' you need to see," he mumbled and then nodded at Just Kenny, who pulled on her arm and took her out of the room, all while her eyes never left the Joker's. He looked at her, her dread-filled eyes, his blood covered darling, and smiled. Colter clenched his fists and Joker cracked his knuckles. Then the door slammed shut.

"Wait!" June cried, grasping Just Kenny's arm. "You can't just leave him in there with Colter! He'll-!" She stopped her mouth from running once she tasted the blood on her lips. Wiping her nose again, she pulled back to see a fresh, wet blot of blood. Just Kenny raised a brow as if to judge her for her outburst.

In all honesty, she knew exactly who she was trying to defend, but didn't dare speak it. The two were just as bad as each other. On one hand, she had to take a stand for her patient, as beating him to a pulp wouldn't do anything but worsen his condition. But on the other hand, the Joker would kill Colter. The only reason he hadn't yet was because he'd been tied up in a straightjacket.

She heard the first punch, muffled behind the door. She didn't know who landed it. Even when the Joker laughed, she wasn't sure who was beating on who. He was that mad. That much of a maniac.

So she ran. Panicked Juniper ran through the halls of the asylum with blood flowing freely from her nose and her coat trailing behind her. She didn't care who she saw, who she passed. At the end of the corridor was Aaron Cash, and that was when she stopped running, his eyes wide.

"Dr. Stoltz?" He stammered, the frightened girl looking like a victim straight out of a horror movie. "What happened?"

She panted, "Go- go to the therapy room. Patient 4479 is-" She stopped, swallowed, took a deep breath and composed herself. "Colter. He's assaulting a patient."

Despite her gory appearance, Cash didn't question her, just turned around and bolted down to the interviewing room, pulling his walkie-talkie out to contact Colter. When he left, June carried on towards the bathroom, but this time with slow strides, walking through what felt like a dream.

Slipping in through the door, June stood by the nearest sink and delicately turned the faucet, staining it a scarlet red. The water flowed, echoing around the empty bathroom. Cold fingers met boiling water, and she cradled her hands as the blood washed off, turning the water pink as it spiralled down the drain. Looking up at herself in the mirror, she realised that the blood surrounding her mouth wasn't at all dissimilar to how the Joker looked. Red and chaotic. Smudged without a care. Almost... smiling.

She had done something terrible today. This was going to be a catalyst to a million catastrophes, she could feel it. So, was it worth it? Was all the pain and blood worth knowing that her work meant nothing? That he didn't remember a thing?

She drenched her face in water, the blood running. It didn't even feel like the same face, knowing what she knew. After she was done washing away any traces of blood, June left the decaying bathroom and returned to the comforting confines of her office, where she locked the door, dropped her bag, and stood in the silence, basking in it. It felt like it was the only thing that brought her mind peace anymore. Nothingness. And yet, it was the nothingness that inhabited the Joker's mind that shook her to her core, left her head spinning and wondering: what kind of world does that to a person? Strips someone naked of their identity and leaves them empty, devoid of knowing who they are and where they came from? To live a life where nothing had any meaning was no life at all.

Stepping over to her desk, June kicked off her shoes and sat on her desk, not sure what to feel anymore. There was pain, that was something. And confusion. And sorrow. And... him. She felt as though he were the only person who really understood how things were. He knew what it was like to have the short end of the stick, knew what it was like to keep secrets that weren't his own, he knew too much about other people and not enough about himself to know what do to with the information- _just like her_. June had lived a hundred lives through other people's memories and sometimes she found things she wished she'd never seen- Colter's pursuance of women, the loss of Cash's hand, how Mama met June's father... and how he left her because of who she was. The skin she was born in. _My family don't accept people like you,_ he'd said _, I was just experimenting._ And how Mama had never seen the bastard ever again. _Oh, Mama_... June tipped her head back to the sky. _Mama_.

The stack of papers beside her loomed. Hundreds upon hundreds of now useless documents, bullshit pieces about theories of where the Joker had come from. All meaningless, all empty. Just like his head. In a fit of frustration, June shoved the entire stack to the floor, and it rained all around the room, the carpet becoming a wonderland paved with doctor's reports.

Mess? There was no such thing. Slowly descending from her desk, June's nylon-covered toes dropped to the papered floor, and curling them, she stepped a circle around the room, a silent, dance-less waltz following the carnival theme she'd heard in his head. She stepped all over the reports describing who the Joker was- or wasn't- and she treated every one like a stepping stone, something good, words glowing. The carnival music in her head.

Then suddenly, she stopped. On the floor before her, just under her toes, was the little object she'd held for comfort, for meaning, for an excuse to call him human. June crouched down and reached for it. The joker card she'd taken from the deck. Descending not only to the floor, but to what felt like madness, she sat amidst the pile of papers and clutched onto the joker card lovingly, her crying eyes spilling over a genuine smile, and she pressed the card to her chest, holding it as if it would hold her, too.

And Juniper cried, for her misery was as bittersweet as her love.

* * *

 _ **June did: that. And YES, the Joker has amnesia. One of my favourite theories that I don't see enough people write about so I get to experiment with it!**_

 _ **I just hoped I explained the process of the memory thing okay, after all, I've never really seen anyone write something like this so I had no point of reference, just had to make it up myself! Obviously, there is a certain method of do's and don't's to Junie's powers that I won't reveal until a little while... so urge any confusions to be patient!**_

 _ **So yup, lots happened this chapter, so tell me what you think. I'm pumped! I can't wait to really get into this story and start having fun with the plot elements. I know that everyone just wants to see Joker and June bang but there's gotta be tension, y'know? There's gotta be a motive, there's gotta be character. (They can't just fuck, they gotta mean it!)**_

 _ **Lmao I'm really tired. I hope you all enjoyed this!**_

 _ **-tkj**_


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